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THE    LOWER    SOUTH 

IN  AMERICAN   HISTORY 


THE    LOWER    SOUTH 


IN 


AMERICAN    HISTORY 


BY 


WILLIAM   GARROTT   BROWN 

LECTURER  IN  HISTORY  AT  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 
FOR  THE  YEAR  1901-2 

AUTHOR  OF  "  A  HISTORY  OF  ALABAMA,"  "  ANDREW 
JACKSON,"  "  STEPHEN  ARNOLD  DOUGLAS,"  ETC. 


THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1903 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  igoa, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up,  electrotyped,  and  published  May,  1902.    Reprinted 
June,  1903. 


XortoaoB 

J.  S.  Cashing  &  Co.  — Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


WILSON  RICHARD  BROWN 
EUGENE  LEVERT  BROWN 

£231)0  stooti  as  tie  to  let  me  pa»» 


PREFACE 

THE  substance  of  the  first  three  papers  in  this 
volume  has  been  given  in  the  form  of  public  lectures 
at  Harvard  University  and  at  various  Southern 
colleges.  The  three  essays  which  follow  are  re- 
printed by  the  consent  of  the  publishers  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  and  are  but  slightly  changed 
from  the  form  in  which  they  appeared  in  that 
magazine.  The  other  two  papers  have  not  been 
published  before.  No  one  but  myself  is  respon- 
sible for  any  opinions  or  any  errors,  but  I  am 
indebted  to  many  persons,  North  and  South,  for 
facts,  for  suggestions,  and  for  criticism.  The 
criticisms  of  Professor  Guy  Stevens  Callender,  of 
Bowdoin  College,  on  the  title  essay,  were  particu- 
larly helpful. 

There  is  something  I  might  say  by  way  of 
apology  for  the  thin  and  fragmentary  effect 
which  the  whole  must  have,  but  my  impulse  is 
to  leave  it  unsaid,  and  to  say,  instead,  what  the 
slight  hope  is  which  I  have  in  the  book.  The 


viii  PREFACE 

utmost  it  can  accomplish  is  to  sketch  what  now  I 
cannot  paint ;  to  give  an  earnest  of  what  waits  on 
circumstance.  For  my  true  task,  like  many  another 
task  of  many  another  man,  must  wait  for  better 
days :  for  days  of  confident  mornings  and  calm 
evenings.  Such  his  days  and  nights  must  be,  and 
firm  his  will  must  be,  his  mind  at  peace,  his 
silence  undistracted,  who  would  enter  into  the 
body  of  this  civilization  which  I  have  tried  to  inti- 
mate with  outlines,  and  make  it  live  again  through 
these  and  other  of  its  times  and  seasons,  he  also 
living  in  it,  and  dying  in  it,  and  rising  in  it  again. 
For  that,  and  nothing  less,  is  the  demand  it  makes 
of  its  historian. 

It  will  be  something  if  these  papers  shall  make 
it  plain  that  my  subject  is  a  true  body  of  human 
life,  —  a  thing,  and  not  a  mass  of  facts,  a  topic  in 
political  science,  an  object  lesson  in  large  morali- 
ties. To  know  the  thing  itself  should  be  our 
study;  and  the  right  study  of  it  is  thought  and  pas- 
sion, not  research  alone.  For  this,  like  every  other 
great  and  tragical  human  thing,  passes  forever 
into  the  mind  and  character  and  life  of  whosoever 
touches  it,  though  he  touch  it  never  so  lightly. 
If  he  himself  be  born  of  it,  then  he  inherits  all  its 
past.  It  will  forever  strain  him  forth  beyond  his 


PREFACE  IX 

narrow  bounds  of  individual  experience ;  darken 
his  doubt  into  bewilderment ;  insist  upon  its  share 
in  his  achievement ;  echo  with  its  Appomatox  his 
little  failures  and  surrenders.  There  is  no  other 
such  thing  in  the  world.  An  eminent  man  of  pur- 
pose, who  will  never  condone  a  tragedy,  called  it 
once  "  the  saddest  fact  in  all  the  world,"  —  and 
felt  not,  perhaps,  how  many  dreary  lives  he  com- 
passed with  his  phrase. 

And  yet,  it  compensates  sometimes,  even  while 
it  damns.  I  have  come  out  of  it  and  stood  apart, 
and  it  drew  me  back  with  a  most  potent  charm. 
Through  and  through  it  I  have  plunged,  —  from 
end  to  end  of  it  in  history,  from  end  to  end  of 
it  in  physical  dimension.  Emerging  on  the  other 
side  of  it,  I  stood  on  the  long  hill  by  San  An- 
tonio, the  low,  gray  cross  of  the  Alamo  beneath  me, 
where  once  in  death  it  grimly  triumphed,  and 
looked  back  upon  it,  and  cursed  it,  and  blessed  the 
flag  of  the  Republic,  fluttering  there  on  Fort  Sam 
Houston,  for  a  sign  of  the  stronger  and  better  thing 
that  overthrew  it.  Nevertheless,  there  also  it  per- 
sisted, conquerable  but  indestructible,  stretching 
thence  back  over  the  dark  lands  about  the  Gulf, 
the  Georgian  hills,  the  Carolinian  rice  swamps,  on 
to  the  Potomac  and  the  Virginian  lowlands,  where 


X  PREFACE 

the  first  acquiescence  was,  and  the  first  ease,  and 
the  first  slow  working  out  of  sin.  And  then  —  I 
turned  to  the  westward;  and  to  me,  as  to  Ober- 
mann  on  his  Alp,  as  to  every  man,  greater  or 
less,  who  takes  upon  him  the  burden  of  a  mys- 
tery too  heavy  for  his  weak  heart,  there  came  once 
more,  unsought,  unreasoned,  hateful,  the  old  reac- 
tion and  resurrection  from  despair.  Once  more, 
with  eyes  like  theirs  who  from  the  Alamo  looked 
out  upon  the  Spaniard,  —  like  hers,  the  sweet- 
voiced  child's  beside  me,  heiress,  as  I  am  heir,  to 
all  the  sorrow  and  all  the  tortured  pride  of  it,  — 
once  more,  defiantly  and  gently,  I  faced  the  future, 
charged  with  whatever  repetitions,  whatever  fresh 
bewilderments,  over  the  Texan  plains. 

CAMBRIDGE, 
April  24, 1902. 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

I.    THE   LOWER    SOUTH   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY 

(1820-1860)     3 

1.  THE  RISE  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES  .        .  3 

2.  THE  ASCENDENCY  OF  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

IN  THE  UNION 50 

3.  THE  FINAL  STRUGGLE  IN  THE  UNION       .  83 
II.    THE  ORATOR  OF  SECESSION       .        .        .        .  115 

III.  THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY    .        .  155 

IV.  THE  Ku  KLUX  MOVEMENT        ....  191 
V.    A  NEW  HERO  OF  AN  OLD  TYPE       .        .        .  229 

VI.    SHIFTING  THE  WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN       .       .  247 


I.    THE   LOWER   SOUTH 


I 

THE    LOWER    SOUTH    IN 
AMERICAN    HISTORY 

(1820-1860) 

THE  RISE  OF  THE  COTTON  STATES 

I  WISH  to  discuss  very  broadly  a  certain  quarter 
of  the  Union  and  the  part  it  played  in  a  certain 
period  of  American  history ;  to  describe  a  region 
commonly  regarded  as  a  sort  of  Nazareth,  out  of 
which  only  tasks  and  perplexities  have  come ;  to 
examine  a  civilization  which  many  have  looked 
upon  as  foreign  to  American  ideas ;  to  review  a 
political  enterprise  which  has  often  been  con- 
demned as  contrary  to  American  principles.  My 
aim  is  neither  to  defend  nor  to  arraign.  I  wish 
to  inquire  whether  that  civilization  and  that 
political  enterprise  were  a  natural  outcome  of 
material  conditions  and  of  what  went  before,  not 
whether  they  were  right  or  wrong.  I  wish  to 
inquire  whether  the  men  and  women  of  that 
time  and  region  had  the  ordinary  qualities  of 

3 


4  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

human  nature,  not  whether  they  were  better  or 
worse  than  the  men  and  women  of  other  lands  and 
times. 

The  region  I  have  in  mind  is  the  southernmost 
part  of  the  United  States,  and  is  oftenest  desig- 
nated nowadays  as  the  Cotton  States ;  formerly,  it 
was  sometimes  called  the  Cotton  Kingdom.  The 
period  is  the  long  period  of  material  development, 
of  territorial  expansion,  and  of  domestic  contro- 
versy, from  the  admission  of  Missouri  in  1820  to 
the  secession  of  South  Carolina  in  1860. 

Only  two  of  the  states  included  in  this  region, 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  were  of  the  original 
thirteen.  The  early  history  of  the  others,  though 
curious  and  interesting,  is  not  much  dwelt  upon  in 
the  formal  histories  of  the  United  States.  One 
learns  from  these  that  Spanish  adventurers,  the 
immediate  successors  of  Columbus,  explored  the 
coasts  of  the  Mexican  Gulf ;  that  De  Leon  was  in 
Florida ;  that  De  Soto  made  a  cruel,  heroic,  boot- 
less march  from  the  Savannah  to  the  Mississippi, 
and  was  buried  in  the  great  river  of  the  West; 
that  Mobile  and  New  Orleans  were  settled  by  the 
French.  One  knows,  of  course,  that  the  great 
Louisiana  Territory  was  bought  from  Napoleon  in 
1803,  and  one  remembers  rather  vaguely  that  there 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  5 

was  a  boundary  controversy  with  Spain  about  West 
Florida,  and  that  both  the  Floridas  came  finally  to 
the  United  States  in  1819.  Then  one  ceases  to 
think  of  the  Gulf  states  except  as  a  part  of  "the 
South."  They  are  put  into  a  group  with  the  Caro- 
linas  and  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  If  a  particular 
Southern  state  is  singled  out  for  a  representative, 
it  is  apt  to  be  Virginia,  as  the  oldest. 

Yet  the  lower  South  differed  materially  from 
the  upper  South :  not  so  much  as  Virginia  differed 
from  Massachusetts,  but  quite  enough  to  make  it 
necessary  for  us  to  distinguish  between  the  two 
groups  of  Southern  states.  Let  us  begin,  how- 
ever, with  a  word  or  two  about  the  differences 
between  Virginia  and  the  whole  South,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  Massachusetts  and  the  whole 
North,  on  the  other.  It  will  be  necessary  to 
repeat  some  things  which  have  often  been  said 
before,  and  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  controvert 
seriously  the  opinions  maintained  by  recent  writers 
of  history. 

The  differences  were  not  plainly  racial.  There 
were  no  race  elements  of  any  importance  to  be 
found  in  the  Southern  country  which  were  not 
also  represented  in  the  East  and  North.  The 
main  stock,  North  and  South,  was,  of  course, 


6  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

English,  and  it  is  not  even  true,  speaking  broadly, 
that  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  were  peopled  from 
one  rank  of  English  society  and  New  England 
from  another.  To  contrast  the  Puritan  and  the 
Cavalier,  somewhat  as  Macaulay  did  in  his  brill- 
iant essay  on  Milton,  and  to  dramatize  our  long 
sectional  controversy  into  a  picturesque  conflict 
between  Virginian  Ruperts  and  New  England 
Cromwells,  is  a  rhetorical  opportunity  which  our 
occasional  orators  and  our  more  literary  historians 
have  seldom  foregone.  That  Massachusetts  was 
settled  mainly  by  preachers  and  tinkers  is  still 
a  prevalent  notion  in  the  South,  while  the  cor- 
responding notion  that  the  early  Virginians  were 
mainly  cadets  of  noble  houses  is  also  still  en- 
tertained, though  of  late  years  Eastern  writers 
have  often  intimated  that  even  distinguished  Vir- 
ginian families  are  sprung  from  indentured  ser- 
vants. Neither  the  Southern  boast  nor  the  Eastern 
sneer  is  justified  by  a  careful  investigation  of  the 
facts.  President  Tyler,  of  William  and  Mary  Col- 
lege, the  foremost  of  Virginian  antiquaries,  after 
long  study  of  many  genealogies,  finds  himself  dis- 
tinctly reassured  as  to  the  quality  of  early  immi- 
gration. A  fair  judgment,  perhaps,  is  that  the 
nobility  and  the  country  gentry  were  represented 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  y 

in  Virginia  in  about  the  same  proportions  as  in 
Old  England.  But  the  English  middle  class, 
from  which  New  England  drew  the  mass  of  her 
colonial  population,  though  to  the  southward  also 
it  was  represented  more  fully  than  any  other 
class,  was  not  so  well  represented  there  as  in 
New  England.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the 
top  and  the  bottom  of  English  society,  and  not 
the  middle  only,  were  drawn  upon  to  people  Vir- 
ginia, while  New  England  was  stocked  almost 
wholly  from  the  middle  parts.  If  one  struck 
a  balance,  the  two  colonial  groups  were  very 
nearly  on  a  par  in  the  matter  of  the  English 
blood  in  them.  The  distinction  which  Virginia 
had  in  her  upper  class  was  balanced  by  the 
greater  homogeneity  of  New  England's  popula- 
tion and  the  comparative  unimportance  there  of 
the  lowest  class  of  Englishmen. 

So,  too,  of  the  other  race  elements.  The  Afri- 
can, who  from  the  first  took  his  place  below  the 
lowest  of  the  whites  in  Virginia,  was  found  in 
colonial  Massachusetts  also,  though  there  was 
never  any  great  demand  for  him  there,  or  any 
economic  excuse  for  his  presence  there;  and  in 
both  colonies  he  was  a  slave.  French  Hugue- 
nots, coming  in  considerable  numbers  to  the 


8  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

Carolinas,  spread  westward  and  southward.  But 
there  were  French  Huguenots  in  New  England 
also,  and  the  names  of  certain  colonial  worthies 
of  that  strain,  albeit  their  original  owners  might 
not  recognize  them  as  we  pronounce  them  now- 
adays, still  designate  many  streets  and  public 
places  of  Boston  and  other  New  England  cities. 
The  Scotch-Irish,  perhaps,  in  proportion  to  num- 
bers, the  most  notable  of  all  our  race  elements,  par- 
ticularly when  one  considers  the  leaders  they  have 
given  to  our  legislatures  and  our  armies,  were 
strong  in  the  western  parts  of  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina,  whence  they  helped  to  people  Tennes- 
see, and  in  fact  they  spread  over  the  whole  South, 
usually  clinging  together  in  small  communities,  to 
which  they  gave  a  character  of  industry  and  sta- 
bility. But  no  one  needs  to  be  told  how  strong 
that  element  always  was  in  New  England,  and 
particularly  in  New  Hampshire,  where  many  a 
colonial  household  went  back  for  its  heroic  mem- 
ories, not  to  any  English  battlefield,  but  to  what 
was  often  called  merely  "the  siege,"  meaning 
always  the  siege  of  Londonderry.  Men  shaped 
in  the  physical  mould  of  Andrew  Jackson  and 
John  C.  Calhoun  were  to  be  met  on  many  a  vil- 
lage street  in  northern  New  England,  as  they 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  9 

were  in  the  more  thriving  country  towns  of  the 
South.  Catholic  Irish  were,  it  is  true,  very 
scarce  in  Southern  cities,  and  by  the  end  of  our 
period  they  were  growing  numerous  in  the  North. 
In  the  closing  years  of  the  Civil  War,  their  superb 
fighting  qualities  largely  offset  the  waning  fire 
and  dash  of  the  Confederates.  Neither  did  the 
South  get  any  large  share  of  the  continental 
emigrants  who  came  in  such  a  rapidly  growing 
stream  in  the  fifties.  But  a  moment's  reflection 
is  enough  to  dispel  altogether  the  notion  that, 
except  by  increasing  the  population,  the  wealth, 
and  the  voting  power  of  the  North,  the  Catholic 
Irish  and  the  Italians,  Swedes,  Germans,  and 
other  comparatively  new  race  elements  in  the 
North  had  any  important  effect  in  heightening 
the  differences  between  the  sections  before  the 
Civil  War.  The  only  really  important  differences 
that  had  to  do  with  race  were  the  greater  homo- 
geneity of  the  English  stock  in  New  England,  the 
greater  mass  of  blacks  in  the  South,  and  the 
larger  proportion  among  the  whites  there  both 
of  such  as  had  always  been  used  to  places  of 
authority  and  of  such  as  had  always  looked  up 
to  the  authority  of  others.  « 

Somewhat  more  important,  but  still  not  of  the 


IO  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

first  importance,  were  the  differences  in  religious 
traditions  and  in  those  political  ideas  which  are 
closely  related  to  men's  religious  beliefs  and 
practices.  During  the  period  of  the  Puritan 
Revolution  in  old  England,  New  England  was 
mainly  for  the  rebels  and  for  Cromwell,  while 
the  Southern  colonies  leaned  to  the  side  of  the 
king.  The  victories  of  Cromwell  drove  many 
of  the  gentry  to  Virginia,  and  the  restoration  of 
the  Stuarts  led  to  an  increase  in  the  Puritan 
population  of  New  England.  The  English  church 
never  had  much  strength  there  until  comparatively 
recent  years,  while  in  Virginia,  up  to  the  time  of 
the  great  Methodist  movement,  its  ascendency 
was  uncontested.  Before  the  Revolution,  how- 
ever, Methodists  and  Baptists  and  Presbyterians 
were  already  numerous  in  the  South,  and  since 
the  colonies  became  States  no  one  of  the  Southern 
States  has  had  a  majority  of  the  Episcopalian 
faith  and  form  of  worship.  Nevertheless,  that 
long  remained  the  leading  denomination  among 
the  upper  classes  of  Southern  society,  and  through 
its  vestry  plan  of  church  government  and  its 
organization  by  parishes  it  had  a  strong  influence 
on  the  social  and  political  life  of  the  people  —  far 
stronger  and  more  important  than  any  loyalist 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  II 

sentiment  or  any  aristocratic  notions  about  gov- 
ernment which  may  have  survived  the  Revolution. 
It  contributed  more  to  that  divergence  which 
gradually,  in  two  centuries  or  thereabouts,  from 
perfectly  natural  causes,  and  through  no  sudden 
or  dramatic  processes,  made  communities  which 
began  with  the  same  political  ideas  unlike  in 
their  political  no  less  than  in  their  economic 
and  social  arrangements. 

The  economic  and  industrial  differences  werg, 
manifest  early  in  the  colonial  period.  In  Virginia 
and  the  Carolinas,  agriculture  was  always  the  main 
industry.  The  cereals  were  grown,  but  the  chief 
and  characteristic  crops  were  tobacco  in  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina,  rice  and  indigo,  and  to  a  less 
extent  cotton,  in  South  Carolina.  The  plantation 
system,  instead  of  the  small  township  groupings 
of  New  England,  prevailed  from  the  first,  chiefly 
because  good  land  was  more  plentiful  and  the 
chief  crops  could  be  grown  more  profitably  on  a 
large  scale,  but  partly  because,  according  to  the 
prevalent  system  of  church  government,  there 
was  never  any  strong  tendency  in  the  people  to 
gather  about  a  meeting-house.  In  New  England, 
each  congregation  was  independent;  the  religious 
motive  was,  next  to  the  primal  physical  needs,  the 


12  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

strongest  of  all ;  and  those  of  the  people  who  lived 
by  tilling  the  soil  found  that  small  holdings  were 
most  profitable.  Negro  labor  not  being  adapted 
to  the  climate  or  the  crops,  and  there  being  in 
New  England  no  indentured  white  servants,  large 
plantation  establishments  were  never  maintained. 
To  gather  in  a  comparatively  thickly  settled  com- 
munity about  a  meeting-house,  to  meet  all  together 
now  and  then  in  order  to  discuss  the  affairs  of 
the  town,  to  make  the  town  the  unit  of  political 
and  military  organization  and  the  refuge  from 
the  Indians,  —  all  this  was  as  natural  for  the 
Congregationalists  of  New  England  as  an  en- 
tirely dissimilar  arrangement  was  natural  for  the 
Episcopalians  of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas.  A 
coast  indented  everywhere  with  estuaries,  a  fertile 
soil,  a  mild  climate,  a  labor  system  based  first  on 
indentured  whites  and  then  increasingly  on  Afri- 
can slaves,  invited  the  Southern  colonists  to  dis- 
perse and  take  up  large  holdings.  Their  church 
system,  with  its  parish  and  its  vestry,  made  no 
difficulty. 

The  parish,  comprising  a  reasonable  number  of 
plantations,  became  the  unit  of  political  organiza- 
tion. The  vestry  board,  elective  at  first,  but  after 
1662  empowered,  in  Virginia,  to  fill  its  own  vacan- 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  13 

cies,  did  the  thinking  and  the  work  of  the  parish, 
and  there  was  no  necessity  for  holding  such  as- 
semblies as  the  town  meeting,  which  would  have 
been  inconvenient  for  a  people  so  scattered.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  English  county  organization, 
which  in  New  England  never  had  any  important 
part  to  play,  was  in  Virginia  a  suitable  device  for 
such  governmental  work  and  such  military  organi- 
zation as  proved  too  big  for  the  parish  author- 
ities and  too  little  for  the  colonial  authorities. 
The  English  sheriff  and  the  English  lieutenant 
thus  reappeared  in  the  New  World  with  their 
functions  and  their  importance  rather  increased 
than  diminished.  Such  offices  fell  naturally  into 
the  hands  of  the  larger  landowners,  who  were  apt 
to  be,  though  they  were  not  always,  members  of 
the  colonial  gentry.  The  county  courts  grew  in 
importance,  and  the  practice  of  letting  the  judges 
make  recommendations  to  the  colonial  governor 
concerning  vacancies  in  their  ranks  ended  in 
making  the  county  bench  almost  as  close  a  cor- 
poration as  the  parish  vestry.  The  New  England ' 
town  easily  grew  into  a  city.  In  colonial  Virginia, 
cities  would  not  grow  of  themselves,  and  legisla- 
tion to  make  them  grow  was  vain.  On  the  South 
Carolina  coast,  where  white  men  could  not  live 


14  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

on  their  plantations  during  certain  seasons,  Charles- 
ton grew  into  some  importance,  and  so  did  Savan- 
nah, in  Georgia ;  but  plantations  and  small  villages 
were  in  most  quarters  the  only  groupings  of  popu- 
lation. Even  the  court-houses  at  the  county  seats, 
though  on  court  days  they  drew  considerable  gath- 
erings, stood  sometimes  almost  alone.  Country 
stores  supplied  the  immediate  demand  for  mer- 
chandise, but  as  a  rule  the  plantations  got  their 
supplies  straight  from  England,  the  ships  in  many 
cases  unloading  at  each  plantation  wharf.  Com- 
merce, seafaring,  and  manufactures,  the  sources 
of  the  wealth  of  New  England,  were  practically 
unknown,  save  as  conscious  experiments. 

The  plantation  system,  as  developed  in  Virginia 
and  applied  chiefly  to  the  culture  of  tobacco,  was 
sufficiently  profitable  to  maintain  the  colony  up 
Ho  the  Revolution.  It  resulted  in  a  society  made 
t<  up  of  several  layers  or  ranks.  The  slaves  were  at 
the  bottom.  A  considerable  bulk  of  impecunious 
whites,  ill  educated,  lacking  industry  and  initiative, 
getting  their  living  mainly  from  the  poorer  soils, 
was  next  in  rank  above  the  negroes.  A  compara- 
tively small  body  of  white  mechanics,  tradesmen, 
and  artisans  held  a  doubtful  place.  Farmers 
with  reasonable  holdings  and  planters  with  great 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  15 

holdings,  the  two  classes  not  clearly  separated 
but  on  the  contrary  almost  merged  into  one  class, 
were  dominant  politically  and  industrially.  With 
them  were  associated  the  members  of  the  learned 
professions.  The  lawyers,  in  particular,  were  im- 
portant members  of  society.  It  was  a  group  of 
Virginian  planters  and  lawyers  who,  after  two 
hundred  years  of  that  life,  proved  by  their  work 
in  Revolutionary  times,  and  by  their  nobly  rounded 
careers,  that  a  slaveholding  community,  without 
commerce,  without  manufactures,  without  cities, 
without  common  schools,  could  yet  produce  men 
of  the  very  highest  wisdom  and  capacity  for 
leadership. 

It  is  well  known,  however,  that  these  men  them- 
selves gravely  questioned  the  soundness  of  the 
social  organism  from  which  they  sprang.  Jeffer- 
son bitterly  lamented  the  fact  of  slavery,  opposed 
the  spread  of  it,  placed  the  utmost  emphasis  on  the 
value  of  New  England's  town  meetings,  and  by 
destroying  primogenitures  aimed  a  blow  directly 
at  the  plantation  system.  Washington's  misgiv- 
ings were  as  gloomy.  By  the  beginning  of-  the 
nineteenth  century,  it  was  clear  that  Virginia  and 
the  other  states  of  the  upper  South,  if  left  to 
themselves,  would  almost  certainly  change  their 


1 6  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

industrial  system,  and  changes  in  their  social  and 
political  systems  would  naturally  have  followed. 
As  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  decade  of 
the  nineteenth  century  there  still  seemed  a  chance 
that  Jefferson's  counsel  would  be  heeded.  Sla- 
very in  Virginia  was  a  failure  as  compared  with 
free  labor  in  the  North :  the  profits  of  tobacco- 
growing  on  the  plantation  plan  did  not  begin  to 
make  amends  for  the  lack  of  those  countless 
material  enterprises  into  which  the  people  of 
commonwealths  but  little  farther  north,  whose  cli- 
mate and  natural  resources  did  not  essentially 
differ  from  Virginia's,  had  pressed  with  eager 
energy. 

When  Monroe  ceased  to  be  President,  and  the 
great  Revolutionary  group  of  Virginians  passed 
into  history,  there  seemed  little  reason  to  doubt 
that  their  power  would  fall  into  the  hands  of  those 
Western  representatives  of  the  New  England 
stock,  already  supreme  in  material  achievement, 
who  in  our  own  last  half  of  the  century  held 
so  often  the  first  places  in  the  Republic.  But 
the  sceptre,  though  it  passed  from  Virginia,  was 
caught  up  by  men  of  the  Virginian  strain.  Not 
even  the  men  of  the  West,  though  they  put  for- 
ward Clay,  who  to  a  Western  energy  and  West- 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  \f 

ern  ideas  added  the  old  Virginian  charm  of  per- 
sonality, and  though  they  soon  learned  to  count 
upon  the  support  of  New  England,  which  after 
the  second  Adams  seldom  had  much  direct  leader- 
ship in  national  affairs  —  not  even  the  growing 
West  and  the  rich  and  prosperous  East,  combined 
or  separate,  could  make  headway  against  the  new 
force  which  now  appeared  to  battle  for  the  institu- 
tions and  the  social  organism,  the  material  inter- 
ests and  the  political  ideas,  which  Virginia,  falling 
backward  to  lower  and  lower  rank  among  the 
states,  with  all  the  prestige  of  her  ancient  leader- 
ship and  all  the  glory  of  her  great  names,  was  herself 
almost  ready  to  abandon.  As  the  power  of  Vir- 
ginia declined,  the  power  of  the  lower  South  rose. 
As  the  men  of  Virginia  and  the  border  states  lost 
the  first  places  in  the  national  councils,  the  men  of 
the  Cotton  states  succeeded,  not,  indeed,  to  such 
preeminence  as  the  Revolutionary  Virginians  had 
won,  but  to  such  a  clear  leadership  of  the  South,  and 
to  such  an  ascendency  in  Congress  and  the  courts, 
that  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  they  battled  suc- 
cessfully with  the  men  and  the  ideas  of  the  East 
and  West. 

The  earlier  history  of  the  Southwest,  bitter  as 
were  the  controversies  which  were  provoked  by  the 


1 8  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

expansion  of  the  Republic  in  that  direction,  and  vo- 
luminous as  the  literature  of  those  controversies  has 
grown  to  be,  still  awaits  the  careful  historical  study 
which  has  been  given  to  the  winning  of  the  North- 
west. Even  the  picturesque  and  romantic  period  of 
early  exploration  has  suffered  comparative  neglect. 
The  Northwest  has  profited  to  the  full  by  Park- 
man's  enthusiasm.  The  explorers  and  builders  of 
French  Canada,  bootless  as  their  work  was,  are 
invested  with  a  romantic  charm  in  his  pages.  All 
of  us  have  followed  his  soldiers,  his  priests,  his 
traders,  in  their  heroic  journeys  over  strange 
plains,  among  the  great  lakes,  up  and  down  the 
mysterious  rivers,  of  the  frozen  land  which  they 
sought  to  turn  into  a  new  empire  for  France.  The 
red  men  of  our  imagination  are  the  red  men  of  the 
North  —  the  Hurons,  the  Chippewas,  the  Iroquois. 
But  how  many  of  us  have  ever  followed  that 
other  and  more  promising  effort  to  build  up  a 
French  empire  in  the  lower,  warmer,  more  fertile 
region  which  the  Spaniard  had  marched  across 
and  then  left  to  a  century  and  a  half  of  utter 
darkness  and  mystery  ?  The  splendid  and  bloody 
pageant  of  De  Soto's  masterful  expedition  first 
revealed  to  savages  more  powerful  and  warlike 
than  the  Iroquois  themselves  the  very  existence  of 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  19 

civilization ;  and  his  search  for  gold,  vain  as  it  was, 
first  lifted  for  European  eyes  the  veil  which  hid 
the  most  fruitful  lands  of  the  new  world.  When, 
after  a  century  and  a  half,  the  veil  was  once  more 
lifted,  Spain,  her  Armada  long  since  scattered  and 
her  imperial  power  declined  to  a  second-rate  im- 
portance, was  falling  backward  in  the  Western 
race,  and  England  and  France  were  the  chief  com- 
petitors for  the  upper  coasts  of  the  gulf,  the  broad 
valleys  of  the  Alabama  and  the  Red  River,  and 
the  still  broader  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  It  was 
the  young  La  Salle  who  stirred  France  to  a  sense 
of  the  greatness  of  the  prize ;  but  how  many  of  us 
who  associate  his  name  with  Canada,  the  Lakes, 
and  the  narrow  Mississippi  of  the  Northwest  re- 
member that  he  himself  meant  to  crown  his  life- 
work  with  nation-building  on  the  great  Mississippi 
of  the  Southwest,  or  that  his  ardent  spirit  passed 
away  still  farther  to  the  southwestward,  on  the 
coast  of  Texas  ?  To  his  companion,  Tonti,  a  figure 
only  less  attractive  than  La  Salle's  own,  —  to 
Tonti  of  the  iron  hand,  and  to  the  heroic  sons  of 
the  house  of  Le  Moyne,  D'Iberville,  Bienville,  and 
the  rest,  La  Salle's  task  was  left.  These  names 
are  unfamiliar,  yet  the  work  these  men  did  has  a 
more  permanent  importance  in  our  own  history 


2O  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

than  the  work  of  the  Canadian  pioneers.  A  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  after  De  Soto,  Spain  still  kept 
a  weak  hold  on  Florida,  but  it  was  these  energetic 
Frenchmen  who  first  planted  civilization  in  the 
Southwest.  Two  hundred  years  ago  they  founded 
Mobile,  and  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  New 
Orleans.  They  placated  the  warlike  Creeks,  made 
a  firm  alliance  with  the  cunning  Choctaws,  and 
fought  two  bloody  wars  with  the  Chickasaws, 
whom  De  Soto  had  failed  to  conquer.  At  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi  they  planted  the  civil 
law  and  the  Catholic  faith  so  firmly  that  to  this  day 
it  is  found  convenient  to  keep  on  our  supreme 
bench  at  least  one  jurist  familiar  with  that  legal 
system  and  preferably  of  that  faith.  Their  traders 
and  priests  penetrated  to  the  Red  River  country 
on  the  west,  and  their  easternmost  fort  was  near 
the  present  boundary  of  Georgia.  Alternately 
waging  petty  wars  and  exchanging  ornate  courte- 
sies with  the  Spaniards  of  Florida,  they  flourished 
so  under  the  unhealthy  stimulus  of  John  Law's 
South  Sea  enterprise  that  the  fear  of  the  French 
at  Mobile  was  a  motive  additional  to  Oglethorpe's 
philanthropic  designs  in  the  founding  of  Georgia. 
But  long  before  Georgia  was  founded  unknown 
white  men  —  men  of  whom  nothing  is  known  but 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  21 

that  they  were  Englishmen  —  had  penetrated  the 
wilderness  far  to  the  westward  of  the  Appalachian 
Mountains,  and  struck  bargains  with  the  Indians, 
and  undersold  the  French  traders  under  the  very 
walls  of  their  forts.  Bienville  had  encountered  an 
English  ship  in  the  Mississippi  in  1699,  but  he 
contrived  somehow  to  divert  the  captain  from  his 
errand;  thirty  years  later,  when  he  fought  his 
fiercest  battle  with  the  Chickasaws,  in  what  is  now 
northern  Mississippi,  he  saw  an  English  flag  flying 
over  their  town.  An  obscure  warfare  of  trade  and 
religion  was  waged  in  that  wild,  flat  region  for  more 
than  half  a  century,  until  the  long  struggle  for  a 
continent  ended  on  the  Heights  of  Quebec.  Then 
Mobile  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  English,  and 
New  Orleans  went  to  the  Spaniards. 

Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  laid  claims  to  great 
slices  of  land  extending  westward  from  their 
proper  bounds  to  the  Mississippi,  and  farther 
south  were  the  once  Spanish,  now  English, 
provinces  of  East  Florida  and  West  Florida, 
which  were  loyalist  during  the  Revolution,  and 
so  find  no  place  in  the  histories  of  that  second 
struggle  for  the  continent.  West  Florida,  ex- 
tending from  New  Orleans  eastward  beyond 
Mobile,  was,  however,  invaded  and  conquered 


22  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

during  the  war  by  Spaniards  from  Louisiana,  and 
both  the  Floridas  came  once  again  into  the  hands 
of  Spain  under  the  treaty  of  peace  in  1783.  Then 
came  boundary  controversies  with  Spain,  and 
Spanish  intrigues  looking  to  the  separation  of 
the  Southwest  from  the  Union.  By  the  end  of 
the  century  the  boundary  between  the  Span- 
ish Floridas  and  the  United  States  had  been 
fixed,  the  line  running  east  and  west  from  the 
Mississippi  River  to  the  Georgia  line ;  and  early  in 
the  nineteenth  century  Georgia,  following  the  lead 
of  the  Carolinas,  gave  up  her  claim  to  the  region 
north  of  the  Floridas.  Then  Louisiana  was  bought, 
and  it  became  only  a  question  of  time  when  the 
Spaniards  would  have  to  go.  For  a  moment,  Aaron 
Burr's  mysterious  enterprise  seemed  once  more 
to  threaten  a  separation  of  the  Southwest  from 
the  Union.  But  our  final  struggle  for  the  most 
disputed  region  in  North  America  was  with  the 
British,  who  in  the  War  of  1812  sent  their  strong- 
est expedition  to  that  quarter ;  with  the  Spaniards, 
who  were  really  passive  allies  of  England  ;  and 
with  the  first  claimants  of  all,  the  Indians.  It 
was  the  men  of  the  Southwest  themselves  who 
won  the  fight  for  the  United  States.  Led  by 
Andrew  Jackson,  they  crushed  the  Creeks  in  the 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  23 

most  obstinate  of  all  our  Indian  wars,  battered 
down  the  forts  of  Pensacola,  defended  Mobile, 
which  General  Wilkinson  had  already  occupied, 
and  at  New  Orleans  won  the  single  great  land 
victory  of  the  war.  A  few  years  later,  Florida 
was  again  invaded  in  pursuit  of  the  Seminoles, 
and  Spain's  protests  ended  with  the  treaty  which 
gave  us  the  whole  Gulf  coast  from  Key  West  to 
the  Sabine. 

But  the  lands  thus  won  forever  to  English 
speech  and  English  law  were  still  for  the  most 
part  a  wilderness  when  the  last  century  began. 
The  Spaniards  and  the  French  had  explored  them 
for  gold  and  precious  stones,  and  failing  in  that 
quest  had  long  confined  themselves  to  trade  with 
the  Indians.  They  only  gradually  learned  that 
the  true  value  of  the  country  was  in  its  fertile 
soil,  and  they  never  gave  much  thought  to  its 
richest  product.  The  English,  coming  later  in 
small  numbers  to  West  Florida,  and  Ameri- 
cans, climbing  over  or  journeying  around  the 
mountains,  passed  by  the  beds  of  coal  and  iron 
in  the  foothills  of  the  Appalachian  system  and 
sought  the  lower  agricultural  lands.  But  the 
difficulty  of  separating  the  fibre  from  the  seeds 
made  the  culture  of  cotton  on  a  large  scale 


24  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

unprofitable,  and  the  rice  of  South  Carolina,  the 
sugar-cane  of  Louisiana,  bade  fair  to  prove  the 
main  staples  of  the  lower  South  until,  in  1793, 
Eli  Whitney,  a  visitor  at  the  plantation  home  of 
General  Nathaniel  Greene,  near  Savannah,  shut 
himself  up  in  a  garret  and  set  his  Yankee  brain 
to  work  on  a  machine  that  grew  into  the  cotton 
gin. 

In  1808,  the  foreign  slave  trade  was  forbidden. 
Ten  years  later,  while  the  Virginians,  discour- 
aged about  agriculture  and  discontent  with 
slavery,  were  still  pondering  the  words  of  Jef- 
ferson, thousands  of  English-speaking  men  and 
women  were  sweeping  over  and  around  the 
Appalachian  wall,  lighting  up  the  forests,  as  a 
contemporary  declares,  with  twinkling  camp-fires, 
keeping  pace  with  the  march  of  free  labor 
across  the  continent  to  the  northward,  and  bent 
on  growing  cotton  with  slave  labor  on  the  lands 
which  Andrew  Jackson  had  wrested  from  the 
Creeks  and  defended  against  the  British  and 
the  Spaniards.  Another  stream  moved  down  the 
Mississippi  Valley  from  Kentucky,  Tennessee, 
and  other  states  to  the  northward.  State  after 
state  was  erected  to  pair  off  with  the  new 
states  of  the  Northwest.  Pushing  in  front  of  it 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  2$ 

a  fringe  of  moccasined  pioneers,  the  tide  passed 
on  to  the  westward,  across  the  Mississippi,  across 
the  Red  River  of  the  West,  across  the  Sabine, 
until  the  Englishman  and  the  Spaniard  were 
face  to  face  in  the  desert  and  the  old  affair  of 
the  Armada,  the  ancient  quarrel  of  the  Spanish 
Main  and  the  Dutch  lowlands,  was  renewed  on 
the  plains  of  Texas. 

In  the  imperial  domain  thus  slowly  acquired 
and  swiftly  occupied  were  many  material  resources, 
many  avenues  to  wealth  that  should  have  tempted 
enterprise.  There  were  forests,  rich  deposits  of 
iron  and  other  minerals,  a  soil  adapted  to 
various  crops,  navigable  streams  for  internal 
commerce,  a  reasonable  number  of  ports  for 
foreign  commerce.  Across  the  whole  region, 
however,  there  stretched,  from  east  to  west,  a 
band  of  dark,  calcareous  earth  adapted  as  no 
other  inland  soil  in  the  world  is  to  the  culture 
of  cotton.  This  "Black  Belt,"  varying  in  width 
from  a  score  or  more  to  a  hundred  or  more 
of  miles,  and  various  fertile  valleys  north  and 
south  of  it,  at  once  attracted  the  richer  and 
more  energetic  of  the  immigrants.  The  sandier 
and  less  fertile  lowlands  fell  for  the  most  part  to 
comparatively  small  farmers,  though  their  holdings 


26  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

would  never  be  called  small  in  New  England,  for 
each  of  them  cultivated  a  dozen  times  as  much 
land  as  one  finds  in  the  farms  of  Rhode  Island  and 
Connecticut.  Such  small  farmers  should  never  be 
confounded  with  the  so-called  "  poor  whites,"  who 
drifted  into  the  pine  barrens  of  the  coast  region  or 
built  their  rude  cabins  among  the  hills  to  the 
•  northward.  The  great  mass  of  the  slaves  belonged 
•  to  the  men  who- took  the  Black  Belt  and  the  rich 
valleys  for  their  portion.  The  various  classes  of 
Virginian  and  Carolinian  society  all  found  their 
places  in  the  new  commonwealths,  bringing  with 
them  their  political  institutions,  their  religious  and 
social  usages,  their  habits  of  thought  and  speech 
and  action.  But  there  was  a  certain  process  of 
selection  about  their  coming,  and  then  a  sure  effect 
of  environment  and  growth,  which  somewhat  dif- 
ferentiated the  new  society  from  the  society  which 
had  produced  Washington  and  Jefferson.  As  a  rule, 
the  emigrants  were  the  men  of  the  older  seaboard 
Southern  states  who  were  the  readiest  to  better  their 
fortunes  by  changing  their  homes.  As  some  one 
has  said  of  the  English  who  came  to  America  before 
the  Revolution,  they  were  the  men  who  had  the 
most  "get  up  and  get"  about  them.  The  same 
process  of  selection  continued  as  from  Alabama 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  2/ 

and  Mississippi  the  more  adventurous  pressed  on 
to  Louisiana  and  Arkansas  and  Texas. 

The  form  which  Virginian  society  took  in  the 
lower  South,  the  term  comprehending  South  Caro- 
lina and  Georgia  on  the  east,  and  Louisiana  and 
Arkansas  and  eastern  Texas  on  the  west,  parts  of 
Tennessee  on  the  north,  and  also  Florida,  has  been 
examined  mainly  from  the  outside,  and  usually 
under  the  guidance  of  general  economic  and  moral 
theories.  In  the  writings  of  Northern  historians 
and  political  scientists,  the  moral  weaknesses  of 
slavery  and  the  plantation  system  have  been  most 
emphasized.  Mr.  Cairnes,  a  very  able  economist 
of  the  school  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  has  surrounded 
the  economic  man  with  that  environment  and  sub- 
jected him  to  such  influences  as  could  be  mathe- 
matically reasoned  out  of  the  institutions  which 
prevailed  there,  and  particularly  the  institution  of 
slavery.  Mr.  Frederick  Law  Olmsted,  in  his 
several  volumes  of  travels,  has  supplied  us  with  a 
mass  of  interesting,  accurate,  and  intelligent  ob- 
servations. Foreign  travellers  have  added  much 
to  our  store.  Yet  it  is  quite  possible  that  Mr. 
Cairnes's  close  reasoning,  Mr.  Olmsted's  intel- 
ligent observation,  and  all  similar  attempts  from 
outside,  or  at  least  from  outsiders,  have  failed  to 


28  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

paint  for  us  the  true  form  and  hue  of  that  vanished 
life.  We  know  that  similar  attempts  of  Europeans 
to  exhibit  the  true  form  and  hue  of  our  entire 
American  civilization  by  putting  together  many 
minute  observations,  or  by  reasoning  from  a  few 
broad  truths,  have  seldom  succeeded.  We  admit 
the  facts,  perhaps,  and  we  admire  the  reasoning, 
but  we  do  not  recognize  the  picture.  A  perfectly 
faithful  picture  of  the  civilization  of  the  lower 
South  would  show  at  work  there  the  forces  and 
tendencies  which  Mr.  Cairnes  discussed,  but  it 
would  show  others  also.  It  would  belie  none  of 
Mr.  Olmsted's  observations,  but  it  would  correlate 
them  with  other  facts,  not,  perhaps,  less  important, 
and  throw  upon  them  a  light  not  quite  so  pitiless 
and  distorting.  It  would,  at  least,  enable  us  to 
recognize  those  still  existing  parts  and  members 
of  the  structure  which  time  and  war  have  indeed 
changed  and  broken,  but  not  yet  altogether  de- 
stroyed. Surely,  a  true  picture  of  Southern  life 
half  a  century  ago  should  not  seem  altogether 
strange  to  men  and  women,  still  living,  who  were 
once  a  part  of  it. 

Put  in  its  briefest  and  barest  form,  the  outside 
view  of  that  society  is  somewhat  like  this  :  — 
»  The  labor  of  slaves  in  the  culture  of  cotton,  rice, 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  2<) 

and  sugar-cane  was  profitable  when  employed  on  a 
large  scale,  and  on  rich  lands,  which,  however,  it 
soon  exhausted,  and  so  created  a  constant  demand' 
for  fresh  lands.  Slave  labor,  however,  was  unavail- 
able for  manufactures,  and  far  less  profitable  than 
free  labor  in  the  growing  of  small  crops,  because  a 
slave  has  no  incentive  to  thrift,  care,  honesty,  and 
intelligence.  It  left  no  place  for  free  labor  of 
any  manual  sort,  because  it  made  such  labor  dis- 
graceful. It  tended  to  put  wealth  and  power  of 
all  sorts  into  the  hands  of  a  small  class,  because 
small  holdings  were  less  profitable  than  large,  and 
thus  brought  about  the  rule  of  an  oligarchy  of 
slaveholders,  reducing  the  great  mass  of  the 
whites  to  a  state  of  indigence,  ignorance,  and 
listlessness.  Mr.  Cairnes  describes  them  as  "an 
idle  and  lawless  rabble  who  live  dispersed  over 
vast  plains  in  a  condition  little  removed  from 
absolute  barbarism."  This  rabble,  he  says,  num- 
bered about  five  millions.  The  oligarchy  of  great 
planters,  supreme  at  home,  and  wielding  in  national 
politics  the  power  freely  rendered  up  to  them  by 
millions  of  Southern  poor  whites  and  also  the 
power  they  got  through  the  Constitutional  arrange- 
ment which  gave  them  representation  in  Congress 
for  three-fifths  of  their  slaves,  managed,  by  alliances 


30  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

with  certain  weak  elements  in  Northern  society, 
to  dominate  the  government  at  Washington.  They 
used  their  power  cruelly  at  home,  for  contact  with 
slaves  bred  contempt  for  the  weak,  and  unscrupu- 
lously at  Washington,  aiming  always  to  protect 
themselves  in  their  peculiar  rights  of  property  and 
to  secure,  by  breaking  old  agreements  concerning 
territory  already  acquired,  and  by  ruthless  con- 
quests of  other  territory,  those  fresh  lands  which 
slavery  and  the  plantation  system  constantly 
demanded. 

Every  one  of  these  forces  was  at  work,  every 
one  of  these  tendencies  was  manifest,  in  the  lower 
South.  And  yet,  after  some  years  of  patient 
inquiry  into  the  written  and  printed  records  of 
the  civilization  thus  outlined,  after  following  the 
history,  from  year  to  year,  of  a  particular  Southern 
state,  after  much  free  and  intimate  acquaintance 
with  men  and  women  of  the  old  regime,  after 
long  study  of  the  remnants  of  that  already 
ancient  and  outworn  vesture  of  decay  still  hang- 
ing in  shreds  and  patches  about  the  revivified 
South  of  to-day,  I  cannot  recognize  the  picture 
as  a  true  likeness  of  that  which  was. 

For  it  was  no  economic  man,  no  mere  creature 
of  desires  and  interests  and  inevitable  mental 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  31 

processes,  on  whom  these  forces  played,  in  whom 
these  tendencies  were  at  work.  It  was  a  Vir- 
ginian but  a  few  decades  removed  from  Wash- 
ington and  Yorktown,  from  Jefferson  and  the 
Declaration,  from  Madison  and  the  Constitution, 
from  Mason  and  the  Bill  of  Rights.  It  was 
a  Carolinian  but  one  or  two  generations  from 
Marion  and  Routledge  and  the  two  Pinckneys. 
It  was  an  Englishman  with  centuries  of  the  tra- 
dition of  ordered  liberty  and  slow  progress  in 
his  inmost  thought,  and  in  his  veins  the  blood 
which  the  Normans  spilled  for  Duke  William 
when  he  brought  to  England  the  rudimentary 
forms  of  jury  justice  and  the  blood  which  the 
Saxon  spilled  for  King  Harold  when  he  fought 
with  Duke  William  for  England's  right  to  name 
her  own  rulers.  It  was  a  Scotch-Irishman  whose 
ancestors  had  lived  through  the  siege  of  'Deny 
and  given  to  the  northern  parts  of  Ireland  the 
prosperity  so  little  shared  by  its  southern  parts. 
It  was  a  French  Huguenot  of  the  strain  of  them 
that  followed  Henry  of  Navarre  to  the  throne 
and  Coligny  to  the  block.  And  so,  too,  of  the 
slave  from  whose  abasement  it  is  so  easy  to  infer 
the  degeneracy  of  the  master  and  the  degrada- 
tion of  all  who  were  neither  masters  nor  slaves. 


32  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

He  was  no  mere  black  impersonation  of  those 
qualities  alone  which  servitude  implies.  He  was 
an  individual  with  his  individual  peculiarities  and 
of  a  race  with  marked  characteristics  of  its  own. 
Naturally  without  the  progressive  impulses  of 
his  master,  he  was  at  once  less  sensitive  than 
his  master  would  have  been  to  the  horrors  and 
the  shame  of  servitude,  and  capable,  as  his  mas- 
ter would  never  have  been,  of  fealty  and  affection 
to  the  very  hand  that  chained  him.  He  could 
find  some  incentive  to  industry  in  the  difference 
between  the  lot  he  might  have  if  he  were  a 
house  servant  and  the  lot  he  would  have  as  a 
field  hand.  Slavery  was,  in  the  well-known 
phrase  of  Clay,  "  a  curse  to  the  master  and  a 
wrong  to  the  slave."  But  it  was  not  an  unmiti- 
gated wrong  to  the  slave ;  and  two  centuries  of 
it  in  Virginia  and  half  a  century  of  it  in  the 
Black  Belt  were  not  enough  to  destroy  the  moral 
fibre  of  the  master,  to  cheat  him  of  his  racial 
birthright,  or  to  ban  him  from  the  portals  of 
modern  civilization. 

I  wish  to  sketch,  as  simply  as  I  can,  in  outline, 
but  faithfully,  the  form  which  slavery  and  the 
plantation  system  took  during  their  new  lease  of 
life  after  the  occupation  of  the  lower  South, 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  33 

in  the  particular  Southern  commonwealth  with 
whose  history  I  am  most  familiar.  As  it  happens, 
it  is  perhaps  the  best  of  the  Cotton  states  to  use 
for  an  example,  by  reason  of  its  central  geographi- 
cal position  and  the  typicalness  of  its  population 
and  its  civilization. 

In  1850,  when  Alabama  had  been  thirty  years 
a  state,  her  population  was  about  three-quarters 
of  a  million,  and  the  proportion  of  slaves  to  free- 
men was  about  three  to  four.  The  total  included 
a  small  percentage  of  Catholic  French,  partly 
made  up  of  the  descendants  of  the  French  who 
settled  Mobile,  partly  of  more  recent  colonists, 
veterans  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  who  had  first 
built  up  a  community  of  their  own  in  a  county 
which  they  named  for  the  battle  of  Marengo 
and  then  scattered  and  intermarried  with  people 
of  English  descent.  This  French  element,  more 
interesting  than  important,  and  a  similarly  un- 
important Spanish  element,  both  confined  for  the 
most  part  to  points  near  the  Gulf  coast,  were  the 
only  race  elements  in  the  Cotton  states  that  were 
not  found  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas. 

Like  Virginia,  Alabama  was  in  1850  a  dis- 
tinctly agricultural  community.  What  industrial 
difference  there  was  did  not  lie  in  any  greater 


34  THE  LOWER   SOUTH 

diversification  of  industries  but  in  the  somewhat 
changed  character  of  the  main  industry  as  it  was 
practised  in  the  younger  commonwealth.  The 
growing  of  cotton  gave  to  slave  labor  its  best 
opportunity :  the  cotton  planter  profited  most  by 
that  one  quality  in  which,  according  to  Mr. 
Cairnes,  slave  labor  excels  —  its  capacity  for 
organization  and  combination.  As  a  rule,  the 
'  large  slave  owners  of  Alabama  were  either  cotton 

•  planters  or  members  of  the  learned  professions, 
.  who  lived  in  the  towns,   and   the   great  mass  of 

•  the    slaves    belonged    to    a    comparatively    small 
number  of  men.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  less  than 
thirty    thousand    persons,    that    is    to    say,    less 
than   seven  per  cent  of  the  white  population  of 

,  *  Alabama,  owned  the  three  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  thousand  slaves  in  the  state.  The  average 
holding  of  slaves  was  therefore  between  eleven 
and  twelve.  Three-fourths  of  all  the  slaves  were 
owned  by  less  than  ten  thousand  men. 

The  land  holdings  of  these  men  were  in  pro- 
portion to  their  holdings  of  slaves.  Their  planta- 
tions frequently  included  thousands  of  acres,  and 
from  the  big  plantations  came  the  bulk  of  the 
cotton  crop.  Its  average  annual  value  was  about 
20  millions  of  dollars.  There  were  only  twelve 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  35 

small  cotton  factories  in  the  state,  so  that 
practically  all  of  the  product  was  sent  to  New 
(""England  or  exported  to  Europe.  The  total  annual 
exports  of  the  state,  cotton,  of  course,  being  the 
chief,  were  io|  millions;  the  imports,  less  than 
one  million.  Alabama  therefore  contributed,  as 
did  all  the  Cotton  states,  far  more  than  her  share 
to  the  country's  favorable  balance  of  trade ;  and 
it  should  be  added  that  her  product  contributed 
materially  to  the  prosperity  of  other  sections. 
Yancey,  the  Alabamian  orator,  visiting  New  Eng- 
land and  observing  the  stony  and  unfruitful  soil, 
was  at  a  loss  to  explain  the  wealth  of  the  East 
until  he  saw  cotton  bales  on  the  wharves  at  Boston 
and  visited  the  cotton  mills  of  neighboring  cities. 
No  doubt,  he  exaggerated  the  importance  of  what 
he  saw ;  but  the  East  certainly  profited  by  the 
Southern  market.  The  new  Northwestern  states 
were  even  more  deeply  indebted  to  the  lower 
South  than  the  East  was;  their  prosperity  may 
in  fact  be  dated  from  the  development  of  a  re- 
gion which  did  not  raise  its  own  bread  and  meat, 
and  which  could  be  reached  by  rivers  that  had 
their  sources  near  the  Great  Lakes  and  their 
mouths  on  the  Gulf.  The  Cotton  states  first 
offered  to  the  West,  before  the  building  of  east 


36  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

and  west  railroads,  a  market  for  those  cereal 
crops  which  now  make  the  upper  Mississippi 
Valley  the  granary  of  the  world. 

For  even  those  Alabama  farmers  who  owned 
but  one  or  two  slaves,  or  no  slaves  at  all,  were 
nevertheless  devoted  in  their  loyalty  to  King  Cot- 
ton. They  seldom  grew  more  corn  and  potatoes, 
or  any  other  of  the  many  food  products  for  which 
their  land  was  fit,  or  bred  more  cattle  and  swine, 
than  they  required  for  their  own  use ;  frequently, 
they  did  not  raise  enough  food  for  their  own  use. 
The  supreme  attractiveness  of  cotton  was  due 
to  the  readiness  with  which  it  could  be  turned 
into  money,  the  simplicity  of  the  methods  by 
which  it  was  grown,  and  the  comparative  ease 
with  which  it  could  be  marketed,  even  in  a  coun- 
try of  bad  roads,  which  had  as  yet  less  than  two 
hundred  miles  of  railroads.  The  steamboats,  ply- 
ing all  the  navigable  rivers,  enlivening  the  forests 
with  their  steam  calliopes,  and  brightening  the  low- 
lands at  night  with  their  brilliant  cabin  lights,  were 
the  chief  representatives  of  modern  methods  of 
transportation.  Cotton  was  hauled  from  the  plan- 
tation to  the  nearest  river  bluff,  the  bales  went  slid- 
ing down  an  incline  to  the  waiting  steamboat,  and 
so  passed  on  to  Mobile,  New  Orleans,  Boston, 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  37 

Liverpool.  The  planter  perhaps  followed  his 
crop  as  far  as  Mobile  or  New  Orleans,  made 
a  settlement  with  his  agent,  enjoyed  his  annual 
outing,  and  returned  with  his  supplies  for  another 
year,  not  neglecting  a  proper  provision  for  the 
fortnight's  feasting  and  jollity  at  the  approaching 
Christmastide. 

That  was  the  industrial  life  of  the  farmers  and 
planters,  who  with  their  dependents  and  slaves 
made  up  more  than  half  the  entire  population 
of  the  state.  It  differed  from  the  industrial  life 
of  the  same  classes  in  Virginia  chiefly  in  the  con- 
centration of  land  and  slaves  in  fewer  hands, 
in  the  greater  immediate  profitableness  of  agri- 
culture, and  in  the  greater  rapidity  with  which 
lands  were  exhausted.  Manufactures,  banking, 
commerce,  and  all  other  industries  to  which  the 
term  "  business  "  is  ordinarily  applied,  can  scarcely 
have  supported  more  than  seventy-five  thousand 
or  one  hundred  thousand  white  persons,  employ- 
ing perhaps  as  many  negro  slaves.  As  in  Vir- 
ginia, there  were  no  great  cities ;  in  fact,  Mobile 
alone  had  any  good  claim  to  be  called  a  city. 
But  small  towns  sprang  up  somewhat  rapidly, 
partly  because  the  separate  plantations  could  not 
be  reached  by  water  so  easily  as  in  Virginia,  partly 


38  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

because  the  parish  system  of  church  government 
had  no  effect  on  the  grouping  of  the  population, 
and  partly,  perhaps,  because  the  greater  loneliness 
of  plantation"  life  drew  people  together.  Of  the 
parish,  in  fact,  one  hears  almost  nothing  in  the 
lower  South,  except  in  Louisiana ;  and  the  parishes 
there,  of  a  different  origin,  and  bearing  French 
names,  corresponded  to  the  counties,  not  the 
parishes,  of  Virginia. 

The  Southern  country  town,  eclipsed  by  the 
more  picturesque  plantation,  has  been  somewhat 
neglected  in  literature ;  yet  it  also  had  its  charm 
and  its  importance.  It  could  not  do  the  work  of 
a  city ;  it  was  quite  unlike  a  New  England  village ; 
it  was  not  much  like  a  Western  town.  Its  leading 
citizens  were  planters,  each  of  whom  had  at  least 
one  plantation,  and  not  rarely  several,  in  the 
county,  half  a  dozen  lawyers  and  politicians,  the 
ministers  of  several  churches,  one  or  two  physi- 
cians, and  perhaps  the  teaching  staff  of  a  college 
or  seminary.  Two  or  three  general  stores,  a  livery 
stable,  a  bank,  and  the  county  court-house  fronted 
on  the  principal  square  or  were  ranged  along  the 
main  thoroughfare.  There  might  be  a  small  grog- 
shop in  some  inconspicuous  place ;  but  there  was 
a  strong  feeling  in  many  such  small  communities 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  39 

in  favor  of  prohibition  on  the  local  option  plan. 
The  houses  of  the  planters  and  professional  men, 
usually  in  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  were  spacious, 
as  a  rule,  and  had  frequently  some  claim  to  ele- 
gance. On  Saturdays,  the  stores  were  crowded 
with  small  farmers  and  negroes  from  the  surround- 
ing country,  and  during  court  week  and  in  Christ- 
mas time  one  might  see  perhaps  a  thousand 
people  and  many  vehicles.  Ordinarily,  and  par- 
ticularly in  summer  time,  the  whole  aspect  of  such 
a  community  was  one  of  almost  dreamy  idleness. 
There  remains  one  other  sort  of  industrial  life ; 
but  the  word  "  industrial "  is  too  much  like  industri- 
ous to  be  safely  applied  to  it.  The  people  of  the' 
hills  and  the  sand  barrens,  the  true  "  poor  whites," 
need  no  lengthy  description.  The  class  still 
exists,  practically  unchanged,  for  these  people" 
had  no  part  in  slavery  and  the  plantation  system, 
and  it  is  hard  to  find  any  betterment  of  their 
state  from  the  overthrow  of  slavery.  Many  of 
them,  living  in  the  mountainous  regions,  content 
to  win  a  bare  subsistence  from  the  unfruitful 
surface  of  the  hills  which  held  in  their  bowels 
the  immense  mineral  wealth  of  the  state,  never 
saw  a  negro  from  year  to  year,  and  never  came 
in  contact  with  the  planters  of  the  Black  Belt  and 


4<D  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

the  river  valleys  until  they,  stripped  of  their 
wealth  and  slaves  by  the  war,  turned  from  their 
exhausted  fields  to  the  hills  they  had  so  long 
neglected,  and  disturbed,  with  their  railroads  and 
their  furnaces,  the  remote,  unthrifty,  unambitious, 
inscrutable  people  of  the  squalid  cabin  and  the 
long  rifle  and  the  chin  beard  and  the  hidden  distil- 
lery and  the  oddly  Elizabethan  speech,  who  for 
three  hundred  years  have  not  even  noted  the 
growth  of  America  or  the  progress  of  the  world. 
In  the  industrial  life,  the  intellectual  life,  the 
political  life,  and  the  actively  religious  life  of  the 
South,  these  people  had  no  part  under  slavery, 
and  they  have  none  under  freedom.  If  it  was 
they  whom  Mr.  Cairnes  meant  when  he  spoke  of 
an  "idle  and  lawless  rabble,"  —  and  I  can  find 
nowhere  else  Alabama's  share  of  the  five  millions 
of  such  people  whom  he  credits  to  the  whole 
South, — it  is  difficult  to  accept  his  theory  that 
slavery  alone  produced  them,  since  under  freedom 
they  have  not  changed  or  disappeared. 

Among  the  white  people  of  Alabama  who  did 
play  a  part  in  its  history  there  was  an  intense 
religious  life,  a  limited,  but  not  entirely  arrested, 
intellectual  development,  and  a  political  activity 
far  more  notable  than  any  to  be  found  under  the 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  41 

peculiar  conditions,  resulting  from  the  Civil  War 
and  from  Reconstruction,  which  now  prevail. 

The  various  Protestant  denominations,  particu- 
larly the  Baptists  and  Methodists,  were  strong 
everywhere,  the  main  strength  of  the  Episcopa- 
lians being  among  the  richer  planters  and  their 
associates.  There  were  nearly  fifteen  hundred 
houses  of  worship ;  the  traveller  was  apt  to  find 
one  wherever  two  highways  crossed.  Here  the 
people  gathered  every  Sunday  and  listened,  with 
reverence  and  implicit  faith,  to  a  long  sermon, 
usually  rhetorical  in  its  style  and  orthodox  in  its 
teaching.  Unitarianism,  Universalism,  and  simi- 
lar religious  movements  of  a  progressive  or  revo- 
lutionary tendency  never  spread  into  the  South, 
where  the  churches  always  exercised  a  distinctly 
conservative  influence  on  thought  in  general. 
After  the  service  at  a  country  meeting-house, 
there  was  a  half  hour  of  gossip  about  crops,  the 
weather,  and  politics.  Then  the  people  went 
home  to  their  midday  dinner :  the  wealthy  in  fine 
carriages,  others  in  wagons  or  on  horses  and 
mules.  Camp  meetings  were  an  early  and  natural 
device  among  so  scattered  a  people.  They  were 
sometimes  immense  gatherings,  arousing  the  ut- 
most fervor. 


42  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

Schools  did  not  multiply  like  churches.  There 
was  no  organized  public  school  system  until  the 
end  of  the  fifties.  But  about  a  thousand  public 
schools,  maintained  chiefly  from  gifts  of  the  gen- 
eral government,  offered  rudimentary  instruction 
to  less  than  thirty  thousand  children.  There 
were,  however,  some  really  good  academies  at- 
tended by  the  children  of  the  comparatively  well- 
to-do,  and  there  were  several  colleges  which 
compared  quite  favorably  with  similar  institutions 
in  the  West,  and  even  with  the  smaller  colleges 
of  the  older  eastern  communities.  A  surpris- 
ing progress  had  been  made  in  the  development 
of  girls'  colleges.  The  percentage  of  illiterates 
was  large,  but  this  was  chiefly  due  to  the  people 
of  the  hills  and  the  pine  barrens.  Tutors  were 
commonly  employed  on  the  great  plantations, 
and  the  sons  of  such  households  were  frequently 
sent  to  Eastern  colleges  and  trained  for  learned 
professions. 

There  were  many  men  and  women  who  cared 
about  books,  and  some  private  libraries  well  stocked 
with  Greek  and  Latin  and  English  classics;  but 
there  was  little  interest  in  contemporary  litera- 
ture, and  no  important  literary  activity.  Only  one 
person  confessed  to  the  census  taker  in  1850  that 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  43 

authorship  was  his  (or  perhaps  her)  occupation, 
though  four  or  five  Alabamians  wrote  books  with 
some  skill  in  composition  and  won  some  favor 
with  the  public.  Practically  all  the  planter's 
books,  and  everything  else  he  read  except  his 
weekly  political  and  religious  newspapers,  came, 
like  his  tools  and  furniture,  from  the  North,  or 
from  England,  or,  if  he  lived  near  New  Orleans, 
from  France.  Even  his  children's  school  books 
came,  along  with  their  tutor  or  governess,  from 
New  England  or  old  England.  Sargent  S.  Pren- 
tiss  and  William  H.  Seward  are  examples  of  New 
England  tutors ;  Philip  Henry  Gosse,  the  natural- 
ist, father  of  Edmund  Gosse,  the  man  of  letters, 
was  an  English  tutor  in  the  household  of  an 
Alabamian  planter. 

The  best  intellect  of  the  state  went  sometimes 
into  the  ministry  or  into  medicine,  but  oftener  into 
the  law,  and  through  the  law  into  politics,  though 
the  proportion  of  highly  endowed  young  men  who 
sought  careers  in  the  small  army  and  navy  of 
those  days  was  probably  larger  than  in  the  East 
or  the  West,  where  young  men  of  like  endow- 
ments and  temper  of  mind  were  attracted  by  great 
business  enterprises.  As  to  the  bar,  one  would 
think  that  the  want  of  great  cities  and  of  great 


44  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

industrial  enterprises  might  have  put  lawyers  at 
a  disadvantage  as  compared  with  their  brethren  of 
the  North.  But  whether  able  men  turned  to  the 
law  because  there  were  few  other  openings,  or 
because,  among  a  people  who  cared  more  for  ora- 
tory than  for  any  other  art,  the  law  was  the  surest 
avenue  to  distinction,  to  the  law  they  did  turn 
most  frequently.  One  result  was  that  in  Alabama 
the  courts,  notwithstanding  it  became  the  custom 
to  elect  judges  instead  of  appointing  them,  early 
attained  and  long  maintained  a  high  standard  of 
excellence.  The  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court 
took  high  rank  with  lawyers  and  law  writers 
everywhere. 

Internally,  the  state  was  in  the  main  well 
governed,  according  to  the  Jeffersonian  idea  of 
government.  There  was  no  such  predominance 
of  the  great  planter  class  as  one  might  expect. 
Governors  and  legislators  were  chosen  from 
various  social  ranks ;  many  prominent  men  were 
distinctly  of  the  self-made  type.  The  state  had 
its  period  of  folly  over  banks  and  paper  money, 
but  the  opposition  to  the  experiment  was  ably 
led,  and  when  the  costly  lesson  had  been 
learned  the  people  and  their  representatives  paid 
for  their  folly  manfully,  frowning  down  the 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  45 

least  suggestion  of  repudiation,  and  even  over- 
throwing the  party  in  power  to  get  a  sound 
governor  elected.  The  part  which  the  men  of 
Alabama  and  the  other  Cotton  states  played  in 
Federal  politics,  and  the  long  fight  they  made  for 
national  ascendency,  is  another  matter,  and  our 
proper  subject. 

But  before  we  turn  to  the  militant  aspect  of 
that  civilization,  I  wish  to  say  one  word  more  of 
its  inner  quality.  Before  we  take  our  view  of  the 
men  of  the  lower  South  framing  laws  in  Congress, 
carrying  out  their  policies  in  the  Cabinet  and 
the  White  House,  or  making  ready  for  battle- 
fields, let  us  glance  at  them  once  more  in  their 
homes,  planting  their  fields,  enjoying  their  chief 
diversions  of  riding  and  hunting,  celebrating 
their  feasts,  solemnizing  their  marriages,  burying 
their  dead.  Their  home  life  was,  in  fact,  the 
most  precious  part  of  their  heritage  from  their 
Virginian  and  Carolinian  and  English  ancestors. 
The  rapid  acquirement  of  wealth  by  growing 
cotton  did  certainly  for  a  time  diminish  in  the 
Cotton  states  the  association  of  wealth  with 
good  birth  which  had  prevailed  in  the  seaboard 
states ;  but  the  somewhat  patriarchal  form  which 
plantation  life  always  took  counteracted  any 


46  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

tendency  to  develop  a  recognizable  nouveaux 
riches  class.  The  immense  size  of  the  planta- 
tions made  it  impossible  for  masters  to  main- 
tain with  all  their  slaves  that  kindly  relation 
of  protector  and  protected,  of  strong  and  weak, 
which  was  the  Virginian  tradition.  But  such  a 
kindly  tradition  was  certainly  the  rule  in  planta- 
tion households,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
rule  or  practice  among  overseers  and  field 
hands. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  great  majority  of  white 
men  owned  either  no  slaves  at  all,  or  but  one 
or  two.  Yet  it  is  true  that  the  plantation  was  the 
typical  community  of  the  lower  South,  its  laws 
and  usages  quite  as  dominant  socially  as  its 
economic  influence  was  dominant  politically ;  and 
the  plantation  of  the  lower  South,  like  the  plan- 
tation of  Virginia,  unfruitful  as  it  was  in  art 
and  literature  and  philanthropy,  was  yet  the 
source  of  more  cordiality  and  kindliness  in  all 
the  ordinary  relations  of  men  and  women,  of 
more  generous  impulses,  of  a  more  constant 
protest  against  commercialism,  of  more  distinc- 
tion of  manner  and  charm  of  personality,  than 
any  other  way  of  life  practised  by  Americans  be- 
fore the  Civil  War.  Men  crowded  together  in  new 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  47 

cities,  seeking  chiefly  money,  in  no  wise  rooted 
to  the  soil,  thrown  into  no  permanent  relations 
of  superior  and  inferior,  could  not  be  expected 
to  develop  those  intangible,  indefinable  social 
qualities  which  made  Southerners  of  the  planter 
class  intelligible  and  companionable  to  English 
country  gentlemen,  not  because  of  their  birth, 
but  because  of  their  habits  of  life  and  thought 
and  speech.  One  who  seeks  to  understand  why, 
in  1 86 1,  the  English  upper  classes  favored  the 
South,  will  not  reach  the  end  of  his  list  of 
causes  until  he  compares  such  a  man  as  Thomas 
Dabney,  of  Mississippi,  —  his  chevalier  look,  his 
leisurely,  easy  bearing,  his  simple  and  yet  grace- 
ful courtesy,  and  his  speech,  freed  of  all  jarring 
consonant  sounds,  —  with  one  of  those  straight- 
forward, businesslike,  equally  masterful  but  less 
gracious  men  of  the  West,  who,  without  practis- 
ing a  bow  or  sparing  a  consonant,  came  forward  to 
tell  England  and  the  world  that  the  most  pictu- 
resque of  American  institutions  was  not  American 
at  all.  It  is  a  superficial  historical  philosophy 
which  dilates  on  the  economic  and  institutional  dif- 
ferences between  the  two  sections,  and  ignores 
such  smaller  divergences  as  appeared  in  the  man- 
ners and  speech  of  individuals. 


48  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

The  harshness  of  the  outward,  the  militant 
aspect  of  the  civilization  of  the  lower  South, 
the  gentleness  and  charm  of  the  inner  side  of 
plantation  life,  make  a  contrast  hard  for  a 
stranger  to  understand.  But  to  one  who,  in  the 
gloomy  years  of  the  slow  upbuilding  of  that 
overthrown  and  prostrate  civilization,  has  sought 
to  see  it  as  it  was  before  it  fell,  —  to  one  who 
has  studied  men's  faces  which,  however  they 
hardened  after  laughter,  were  yet  always  quick 
to  lighten  up  with  kindliness  and  merriment, 
and  women's  faces  which,  however  marked  with 
the  touch  of  sorrow  and  humiliation  and  an 
unfamiliar  poverty,  were  yet  sealed  with  a  true 
seal  of  dignity  and  grace,  —  to  such  a  stu- 
dent of  the  old  Southern  life,  the  inner  side  of 
it  is  more  attractive  than  the  outer.  The  one 
is  like  the  midday  look  of  that  fruitful  but  too 
heated  land;  the  other  brings  to  mind  its 
evening  aspect.  Those  midday  heats  are  often 
hard  to  bear.  The  sun's  progress  through  the 
heavens  is  the  hard  march  of  a  ruthless  con- 
queror. The  rank  vegetation  fairly  chokes  the 
earth.  Insects  buzz  and  sting  and  irritate.  Ser- 
pents writhe  to  the  surface  of  miasmous  streams. 
Beasts  palpitate  and  grow  restless.  Men  brood, 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  49 

and  weary  of  the  loneliness,  and  long  for  excite- 
ment, for  fierce  deeds,  battles,  conquests.  But  with 
the  sudden  dropping  of  the  sun  in  the  West  a  swift 
change  comes  over  the  earth  and  beasts  and 
men.  There  is  the  stillness  of  the  wide,  level 
fields,  snowlike  with  cotton;  the  softer,  night- 
time noises  of  the  woods  and  swamps ;  the  splen- 
dor of  the  Southern  stars ;  the  tinkling  of  banjos 
and  the  twinkling  of  lights  in  the  negro  quar- 
ters; the  white  dresses  of  women  and  children, 
and  the  exquisite,  slow  tones  of  human  voices 
on  the  verandas  of  the  great  house.  The  ran- 
cor of  the  midday  passes  —  eclipsed,  over- 
come, atoned  for,  by  the  charmed  sweetness  of 
that  dying  hour. 


THE  ASCENDENCY  OF  THE   LOWER   SOUTH    IN 
THE  UNION 

IN  order  to  understand  the  nature  and  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  effect  which  the  rise  of  the  Cotton 
states  had  upon  the  political  history  of  the  whole 
country,  it  is  necessary  to  recall  the  general  politi- 
cal situation  when  senators  and  representatives 
from  the  lower  South  first  took  their  seats  in 
Congress ;  to  realize  how  definite  and  single 
their  controlling  motive  in  public  life  was;  to 
analyze  the  sources  of  the  power  they  wielded; 
and  to  do  justice  to  the  ability  and  zeal,  how- 
ever misguided  it  may  have  been,  of  the  men 
themselves. 

Taking  the  close  of  Monroe's  second  admin- 
istration in  1824  as  our  point  of  departure,  we 
find  it  a  time  when  any  strong  and  definite 
material  interest,  adequately  represented  at  Wash- 
ington, was  sure  to  have  a  powerful  influence 
on  the  course  of  affairs.  With  the  passage  of 
the  great  men  of  the  revolutionary  school  there 
passed  also,  for  a  time  at  least,  the  great  ques- 

5° 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  51 

tions  they  had  dealt  with.  The  second  war  with 
Great  Britain  had  divorced  us,  far  more  con- 
clusively than  the  first,  from  those  European 
complications  against  which  Washington  and 
Jefferson  had  warned  their  countrymen.  Our 
Constitution  had  been  operating  long  enough 
and  well  enough  to  inspire  a  general  confidence 
in  its  soundness  and  to  discourage  any  attempt 
to  alter  its  essential  features.  The  relations 
between  the  different  departments  of  the  gov- 
ernment had  been  fixed  with  reasonable  finality. 
Hamilton  had  done  his  work  so  well  that  the 
finances  no  longer  required  any  heroic  treatment 
or  provoked  any  bitter  controversies.  The  Feder- 
alist party,  having  served  the  purpose  of  its 
founding,  and  exhausted  its  energy  in  the  work  of 
construction,  and  having  shown  its  inability  to 
adapt  itself  to  the  new  conditions  which  its  own 
policies  had  brought  about,  had  practically  disap- 
peared. There  was  little  discussion  of  principles, 
and  as  yet  no  clear  alignment  on  policies  and 
interests.  It  is  misleading  to  say,  as  so  many 
historians  do  say,  that  only  one  party  existed, 
but  party  lines  had  been  obscured.  Ceasing  to 
divide  on  the  old  questions,  men  did  not  know 
how  they  were  going  to  divide  on  questions 


52  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

which  did  not  yet  present  themselves  clearly. 
So  they  broke  into  factions,  grouping  about 
leaders  instead  of  fighting  for  causes. 

The  new  questions  were  not  yet  clearly  for- 
mulated because,  as  the  country  turned  from  a 
foreign  war  to  consider  its  own  internal  life  and 
growth,  no  great  conflict  of  material  interests 
was  yet  clearly  manifest.  New  England,  though 
first  the  embargo  and  then  the  war  had  sadly 
diminished  that  seafaring  industry  of  hers  which 
Burke  had  praised,  was  not  yet  sure  that  her 
industrial  future  was  to  be  mainly  an  affair  of 
mills  and  shops.  Kentucky  and  the  middle 
West,  and  even  Virginia  and  the  seaboard 
Southern  states,  still  entertained  hopes  of  a 
various  industrial  development,  based  on  their 
variety  of  material  resources.  It  was  in  Ken- 
tucky and  the  middle  West  that  the  policy  of  pro- 
tection and  internal  improvements,  the  "  American 
system,"  had  had  its  birth,  and  Henry  Clay  was 
its  champion.  By  the  side  of  Clay  there  had  stood 
the  young  Calhoun,  of  South  Carolina,  those  fierce 
eyes  of  his  aglow  with  a  true  national  spirit,  while 
the  young  Webster  had  opposed  them  both,  ex- 
posing the  fallacies  and  combating  the  whole 
theory  of  protection  with  the  most  massive  elo- 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  53 

quence  ever  arrayed  against  it.  If  there  was 
one  quarter  of  the  Union  where  the  new  na- 
tional feeling  was  weak,  it  was  New  England, 
her  old  Federalist  leaders  long  excluded  from 
power,  her  industry  not  yet  diverted  from  its 
ancient  channels,  her  best  minds  not  yet  quick- 
ened by  the  Unitarian  revolt  into  those  succes- 
sive experiments  of  a  larger  and  larger  intellectual 
freedom  which  began  with  the  leadership  of 
Channing  and  culminated  in  the  leadership  of 
Emerson.  Virginia  was  already  in  that  hesitat- 
ing, divided  state,  torn  by  the  conflict  between 
her  traditions  of  spacious  patriotism  and  her 
institutional  kinship  with  the  lower  South,  which, 
even  more  than  the  decline  of  her  public  men, 
debarred  her  from  leadership  for  forty  years. 
If  there  was  one  quarter  of  the  Union  where 
the  new  national  feeling  was  strongest,  it  was 
the  middle  West,  where  Clay  led,  and  the  South- 
west, where  Andrew  Jackson,  shrewdly  coached, 
was  turning  his  military  glory  into  political 
power.  South  Carolina  was  beginning  to  bring 
to  bear  upon  Calhoun  that  detaining  urgency 
from  the  rear  which  first  checked  him  in  his 
promising  career  as  a  national  statesman,  and 
set  him  thinking  about  the  nature  of  the  gov- 


54  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

eminent,  and  finally  turned  him  into  the  very 
type  and  exemplar  of  fidelity  to  a  special  in- 
terest. 

The  strength  of  that  interest  was  first  made  plain 
in  1819-20  in  the  debates  over  the  admission  of 
Missouri.  Northern  men  were  not  at  that  time 
moved  by  any  such  aggressive  antislavery  impulse 
as  appeared  a  decade  or  more  later.  They  were 
acting  as  Jefferson  acted  in  regard  to  the  Northwest 
territory,  and  in  accordance  with  his  views.  What 
startled  the  country  now,  and  startled  the  aged 
Jefferson  himself,  was  the  fierceness  of  the  opposi- 
tion to  his  own  programme  of  limiting  slavery  to 
the  states  where  it  already  existed :  the  Southern 
congressmen  and  senators  were  almost  solidly  in 
favor  of  admitting  Missouri  as  a  slave  state.  How- 
ever, with  the  adoption  of  Clay's  compromise,  the 
rancor  quickly  subsided.  There  was  for  a  time 
general  acquiescence  in  the  decision  that  a  geo- 
graphical line  should  divide  the  regions  in  which 
slavery  existed  and  into  which  it  might  spread 
from  the  regions  into  which  only  free  labor  should 
be  admitted.  We  may,  therefore,  take  the  com- 
promise as  a  sort  of  law  of  war,  fixing  the  terms  on 
which  all  sectional  contests  which  might  arise  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  legislation  should  be  fought 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  55 

out.  For  a  clear  illustration  of  the  long  conflict  of 
interests  which  now  began,  and  a  setting  forth 
of  the  interest  which  the  men  of  the  Cotton 
states  particularly  represented,  it  is  better  for  us 
to  turn  to  the  tariff  controversy  from  1828  to 
1833.  It  was  over  such  questions  as  the  tariff 
and  finance  and  foreign  affairs,  —  ordinary  sub- 
jects of  legislation, —  and  not  over  the  admission 
of  new  states,  that  the  fight  was  made  during 
the  years  immediately  following  the  rise  of  the 
lower  South. 

Clay  was  still  the  champion  of  the  American 
system,  but  Calhoun  was  now  against  him,  and 
Webster's  great  figure  was  by  his  side.  Webster's 
change  of  position  was  demanded  by  the  material 
interests  of  his  section,  now  pursuing  chiefly  manu- 
factures and  domestic  commerce ;  and  Calhoun's  by 
the  material  interests  of  his,  now  committed  to 
agriculture  and  to  an  exchange  of  one  or  two 
staples,  preferably  with  Europe,  for  all  other  prod- 
ucts of  industry.  That  these  two  eminent  men 
and  their  associates  and  followers  were  so  influ- 
enced cannot  be  accounted  a  positive  reproach,  for 
the  great  majority  of  public  men  have  always  stood 
mainly  for  material  interests.  In  our  national 
Congress  to-day  the  representatives  of  each  sec- 


56  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

tion  and  each  corner  of  the  country  feel  that  it  is 
their  first  concern  to  protect  and  advance  its  ma- 
terial interests.  For  this  they  are  ordinarily  sent  to 
Washington  and  kept  there.  Let  any  one  of  them 
neglect  this,  and  the  chances  are  he  will  lose  his 
seat.  Some  are  no  doubt  wise  enough  to  see  that  the 
highest  interests  of  every  section  are  bound  up  in 
the  welfare  of  the  whole,  and  all  but  a  very  few 
have  theories  and  sympathies  of  their  own  which 
they  express  in  their  votes  and  speeches,  so  far  as 
they  can  express  them  without  antagonizing  the 
interests  they  represent.  Occasionally,  too,  a 
statesman  altogether  devoted  to  the  national  honor 
and  integrity,  or  to  a  single  principle,  keeps  his 
place  by  virtue  of  exceptional  ability  and  popu- 
larity. But  such  men  are  not  common.  Of  that 
limited  class  of  public  men,  Clay  and  Jackson  were 
representatives  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  speaking, 
and  Webster  and  Calhoun,  though  both  probably 
superior  intellectually  to  Clay  and  Jackson,  were 
not.  Neither  were  the  new  men  from  the  new 
Southern  states  who  now  appeared  in  Washington. 
Many  of  them  were  at  first  supporters  of  Jackson, 
and  some  stood  for  a  while  with  Clay.  But  it  was 
not  many  years  before  they  came  to  act  as  a  rule 
with  Calhoun  and  McDuffie,  of  South  Carolina, 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  57 

whenever  there  was  a  clear  conflict  between  the 
interest  they  represented  and  any  other  interest 
whatsoever. 

What  these  men  of  slow  voices  and  leisurely 
bearing  and  great  capacity  for  intimate  personal 
relationships  and  inbred  fondness  for  power  stood 
for  at  Washington  was  not  slavery  alone,  not  cot- 
ton and  rice  and  sugar-cane  alone,  not  agriculture 
alone,  but  the  whole  social  organism,  the  whole 
civilization,  whose  decay  in  Virginia  had  been 
arrested  by  the  rise  of  the  states  from  which 
they  came.  They  were  committed  to  the  main- 
tenance, in  the  most  progressive  country  in  the 
world,  of  a  primitive  industry,  a  primitive  labor 
system,  and  a  patriarchal  mode  of  life.  They  held 
that  their  main  industry  could  be  successfully 
prosecuted  only  with  slave  labor,  and  while  it  was 
so  prosecuted  it  tended  to  exclude  all  other  forms 
of  industry.  Its  economic  demands  were  impera- 
tive ;  its  political  demands  were  hardly  less  imper- 
ative. Economically,  it  demanded  that  the  fewest 
possible  restrictions  be  placed  upon  the  exchange 
of  its  two  or  three  staple  products  for  the  products 
of  other  countries,  and  that  it  be  permitted  to 
extend  itself  constantly  to  fresh  lands.  Politi- 
cally, it  demanded  protection  from  criticism  and 


58  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

from  social  and  humanitarian  reforms  and  changes. 
In  order  to  enforce  these  economic  and  political 
demands,  the  representatives  of  the  plantation  in- 
terest must  do  more  than  stand  on  the  defensive. 
They  must  not  merely  resist  attack,  they  must 
prevent  it.  They  must  not  only  hold  their  own 
with  the  representatives  of  other  sections,  they 
must  take  the  lead  in  the  nation.  They  must  be 
not  the  equals  merely,  but  the  superiors,  of  North- 
ern public  men.  In  a  word,  they  must  rule. 

The  compelling  demand  behind  them,  the  defi- 
nite and  specific  nature  of  their  task,  was  itself,  in 
a  time  of  obscured  party  divisions  and  but  half 
understood  antagonisms,  a  principal  cause  of  their 
success.  They  had  also  the  advantage  of  repre- 
senting in  Congress  property  as  well  as  men ;  for 
by  the  Constitution  three-fifths  of  the  slaves  were 
entitled  to  representation,  and  the  slaves  were,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes,  save  in  politics,  property, 
and  not  men.  A  Southern  legislature  in  laying 
out  congressional  districts  in  a  particular  region 
first  counted  three-fifths  of  the  slaves,  and  added 
enough  whites  to  make  up  a  proper  constituency. 
Whoever  represented  such  a  district  at  Wash- 
ington was  sure  to  be  heartily  committed  to  the 
Southern  system. 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  59 

Moreover,  the  Cotton  states  were  sure  of  the 
support  of  Virginia  and  the  upper  South.  How- 
ever the  plantation  system  might  decay  there, 
whether  the  agricultural  interest  controlled  there 
or  not,  the  slaveholding  interest  was  sure  to  be 
on  their  side;  for  the  slaveholder  of  the  upper 
South  knew  that  the  value  of  his  slaves  depended, 
not  on  the  profits  of  his  own  tobacco  plantation, 
but  on  the  demand  for  slave  labor  on  the  rice  and 
sugar  and  cotton  plantations  farther  south.  He 
sent  numbers  of  his  slaves  southward,  sometimes 
to  be  sold,  sometimes  to  cultivate  under  an  over- 
seer a  plantation  of  his  own.  The  kinship  of 
ideas  and  social  usages  between  the  two  halves 
of  the  South  was  scarcely  less  potent  than  this 
partial  identity  of  interests;  and  if  more  were 
needed,  there  was  the  strong  tie  of  blood  kinship 
as  well.  The  older  line  of  a  Virginian  family, 
clinging  to  its  first  seat  in  the  tide-water  region, 
was  not  likely  to  antagonize  the  younger  line  in 
its  new  seat,  modelled  after  the  old,  on  the 
Mississippi  or  the  Alabama. 

Allies  in  the  North  were  not  hard  to  find. 
Manufacturers,  of  whose  fortunes  cotton  was  the 
fabric,  were  now  taking  the  places  of  the  old 
merchant  princes  of  the  East;  and  there  were 


6O  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

other  manufacturers,  and  merchants  as  well,  who 
found  in  the  South  as  it  was  a  sure  and  pay- 
ing market,  which  might  be  lost  somehow  if  the 
agitators  had  their  way.  It  is  not  hard  to 
understand  why  abolitionism  was  associated  with 
vagabondage  and  even  treated  as  incendiarism, 
or  why  there  were  so  many  clean  shirts  and 
broadcloth  coats  in  the  mobs  that  threatened 
Garrison  and  Phillips.  In  the  West  and  North- 
west, a  similar  material  interest  could  be  relied  on. 
The  Northwestern  farmer  was  bound  to  the  lower 
South  not  merely  by  the  fact  that  cotton  was 
easily  convertible  into  cash  to  pay  for  his  bread- 
stuffs  and  his  beef  and  bacon ;  his  interest  also  lay 
in  the  Southerner's  refusal  to  make  more  than  one 
appeal  to  the  soil.  He  may  never  have  reasoned 
the  matter  out,  but  he  knew  where  his  products 
went  and  he  did  not  wish  his  customers  disturbed. 
Moreover,  the  southern  counties  of  the  states 
above  the  Ohio  were  colonized  largely  by  men  of 
the  Virginian  stock,  and  Cincinnati  and  other 
rising  Western  cities  owed  to  trade  with  the 
South  almost  as  much  of  their  prosperity  as  the 
country  regions  owed  of  theirs.  Finally,  there 
were  to  be  found  everywhere  throughout  the 
North  devoted  adherents  of  the  principle  of  state 


THE  LOWER   SOUTH  6 1 

rights  who  could  be  counted  on  for  help  whenever 
the  Southerners  cried  out  against  interference  in 
their  affairs ;  and  there  were  many,  though  not 
so  many,  conservatives,  who  had  their  misgivings 
about  the  rapid  extension  of  the  suffrage  —  stead- 
fast supporters  of  the  rights  of  property,  who  were 
sure  to  frown  upon  any  revolutionary  movements 
directed  against  vested  interests.  With  the  first 
class,  Southern  Democrats  could  always  form 
alliances;  with  the  second  class,  Southern  Whigs 
were  equally  sure  of  fellowship. 

But  when  all  these  helps  to  leadership  have  been 
considered,  one  must  still  study  the  men  of  the 
lower  South  themselves  in  order  to  understand  why 
they  were  so  long  successful  against  the  economic 
and  moral  forces  they  had  to  fight  with  —  against 
the  whole  tendency  of  modern  thought,  against  the 
whole  trend  of  American  progress,  against  the  true 
spirit  of  liberty.  Early  in  the  century,  a  speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  declared  that  he 
found  himself  embarrassed  about  committee  assign- 
ments because  there  were  so  many  representatives 
from  the  state  of  South  Carolina  whose  abilities 
and  experience  gave  them  claims  to  the  leading 
places.  Calhoun's  preeminence  in  South  Carolina 
was  not  universally  admitted  until  Lowndes  was 


62  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

dead;  and  it  is  doubtful  if,  a  little  later,  even 
Calhoun's  subtle  reasoning  on  constitutional  ques- 
tions should  be  more  admired  than  George  Mc- 
Duffie's  thorough  mastery  of  the  economics  of  the 
tariff  discussion.  The  public  men  of  the  Gulf 
states  were  in  some  cases  men  who  had  first 
appeared  in  politics  in  the  seaboard  states;  they 
were  nearly  always  trained  politicians  of  a  school 
far  different  from  that  in  which  the  merely  clever 
and  industrious  machine  politicians  of  our  time  are 
trained.  They  usually  came  into  politics  from  the 
law,  or  from  the  headship  of  a  plantation.  If  from 
the  law,  they  might  be  self-made  men,  with  the 
self-made  man's  hardihood  and  independence,  yet 
they  were  apt  to  have  acquired,  as  Andrew  Jackson, 
and  Calhoun,  and  McDuffie,  for  example,  did 
acquire,  the  distinction  of  manner  common  to  the 
large-planter  class.  If  from  the  plantation,  they 
were  usually  men  who  had  successfully  withstood 
the  temptations  of  power  and  wealth  and  solitude ; 
and  such  men  were  the  only  class  in  America 
corresponding  in  character  to  the  hereditary  ruling 
class  in  other  countries.  The  power  and  place 
which  the  owner  of  land  and  slaves  in  the  Cotton 
states  had  might  make  a  weak  man  weaker,  but 
they  were  as  sure  to  make  a  strong  man  stronger. 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  63 

If  the  same  conditions  which  in  colonial  Virginia 
starved  out  common  schools  and  limited  the  intel- 
lectual development  of  the  mass  of  landless  white 
men  did  yet  breed  Washington  and  Henry,  those 
conditions,  intensified  in  the  lower  South,  were  as 
sure  to  breed  strong  leaders  there  as  they  were  to 
limit  the  development  of  the  mass.  A  study  of  the 
portraits  and  photographs  of  Southern  statesmen 
of  the  old  regime  inspires  one  with  the  respect  we 
always  give  to  strength.  These,  one  says  of 
them,  are  such  faces  as  might  have  belonged  to 
the  markgrafen  of  mediaeval  Germany,  to  the  lords 
of  the  marches  in  England  and  Scotland,  or  to 
those  generals  who,  in  the  later  ages  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  so  often  beat  back  the  forces  that  have 
made  modern  Europe  what  it  is. 

It  is  illuminating  to  review  in  outline  the  course 
these  men  took,  and  the  power  they  exercised, 
on  the  great  permanent  questions  which  were  so 
often  debated  during  our  period  —  the  questions  of 
taxation  and  revenue,  internal  improvements,  public 
finance,  and  foreign  affairs. 

It  was  on  the  tariff  question  that  they  first 
showed  how  much  firmer  they  were  than  the 
Virginians  and  Kentuckians.  South  Carolina,  an 
old  state,  and  like  Virginia,  somewhat  weakened,  in 


64  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

the  matter  of  the  energy  of  her  men,  by  the  south- 
westward  emigration,  felt  more  keenly  than  the 
new  states  the  pinch  that  always  came  to  a  region 
cultivated  by  the  plantation  system.  Her  most 
virile  young  men  were  likely  to  emigrate ;  her  best 
lands  were  exhausted.  Moreover,  Charleston, 
which  had  once  bid  fair  to  rival  New  York,  still 
had  possibilities  of  importance  under  free  trade. 
McDuffie,  of  South  Carolina,  set  forth  first  and 
most  clearly  the  reason  why  protective  tariffs 
could  not  fail  to  bear  unequally  on  the  Cotton 
states.  A  tax  on  their  imports,  he  declared,  was 
in  effect  a  tax  on  their  exports.  They  them- 
selves had  nothing  to  protect.  Their  main  prod- 
uct met  with  no  dangerous  competition  either 
at  home  or  abroad.  The  tariff  duties  imposed 
on  their  tools,  their  furniture,  and  everything 
else  they  got  from  England,  might  as  well  be 
imposed  directly  on  the  cotton  they  exported  to 
pay  for  those  things.  Imposed  either  way,  it 
meant  simply  that  a  bale  of  cotton  would  pur- 
chase fewer  of  the  things  which  they  wanted, 
and  which  they  preferred  to  buy  in  England  rather 
than  in  New  York  or  Boston.  To  reply  that  the 
Cotton  states  could  profit  from  protection  by 
varying  their  industries  was  in  effect  to  say 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  65 

that  they  could  do  so  by  changing  their  whole 
labor  system  and  the  whole  constitution  of  their 
society. 

The  reasoning  was  perfectly  sound,  and  prac- 
tically the  whole  lower  South  approved  it.  But 
the  plan  to  enforce  the  reasoning  by  nullifying  a 
law  and  threatening  secession  did  not  get  the  ap- 
proval of  the  whole  lower  South.  The  mass  of 
the  public  men  even  of  the  Cotton  states  were 
still  too  much  dominated  by  a  genuine  patriot- 
ism, and  too  devoted  adherents  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son, to  go  so  far  as  their  South  Carolinian 
leaders,  Calhoun  and  McDuffie,  were  ready  to  go. 
The  fight  that  South  Carolina  made  for  an  eco- 
nomic principle  was  not  entirely  unsuccessful.  The 
fight  she  made  for  a  constitutional  theory  was 
lost.  Her  defeat  was  due  to  the  greater  pros- 
perity, the  greater  hopefulness,  and  the  genuine 
patriotism  which  prevailed  in  the  younger  states; 
her  victory  was  due  to  the  solidarity  of  all  the  Cot- 
ton states  behind  her  on  the  economic  question. 
Their  congressmen  voted  for  the  compromise 
tariff  of  1833,  and  constantly  favored  the  anti- 
protective  plan  of  ad  valorem  duties.  When, 
after  a  long  period  of  financial  depression  and 
failing  revenues,  higher  duties  were  imposed,  they 


66  THE  LOWER   SOUTH 

saw  to  it  that  the  principle  of  protection  got  no 
more  countenance  than  it  did  in  1842.  It  was 
Walker,  the  Mississippian,  who  as  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  wrote  in  1 846  the  report  on  tariff  taxation 
which  is  oftenest  compared  with  Hamilton's  famous 
report  on  manufactures,  the  classical  argument  for 
protection;  and  the  tariff  law  of  1846,  whatever 
the  rate  of  the  duties  might  seem  to  indicate,  was 
more  clearly  in  accordance  with  the  principles 
of  free  trade,  more  clearly  contrary  to  protec- 
tionist ideas  and  devices,  than  any  other  tariff 
law  since  1789.  The  victory  could  never  have 
been  won,  in  the  face  of  the  development  of 
those  interests  in  the  North  which  in  later  years 
have  defeated  or  baffled  every  movement  toward 
free  trade,  but  for  the  more  compact  and  solid 
front  which  the  representatives  of  the  plantation 
interests  of  the  South  —  the  only  important  body 
of  interests  aggressively  opposed  to  protection 
—  presented,  through  a  long  term  of  years,  alike 
to  Clay's  followers  in  the  West  and  to  Webster's 
followers  of  the  East.  The  victory  bade  fair  to 
be  a  permanent  one.  Even  Sumner,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, voted  in  1857  for  a  tariff  as  distinctly 
revenue  in  principle  as  that  of  1846  and  far 
lower  in  its  general  rate  of  duties.  Protection 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  67 

was  not  revived  until  the  lower  South  ceased  to 
be  represented  at  Washington. 

The  other  half  of  Clay's  American  policy 
fared  no  better.  On  the  question  of  internal 
improvements,  as  on  the  tariff  question,  Calhoun 
was  with  him  until  it  clearly  appeared  that  the 
Cotton  states  were  to  have  no  part  in  that  gen- 
eral industrial  development  which  the  second 
war  with  Great  Britain,  by  forcing  us  to  depend 
on  ourselves,  had  done  so  much  to  start,  and 
which  Clay's  policies  were  meant  to  promote. 
But  an  influence  far  more  powerful  than  Cal- 
houn's  was  enlisted  against  the  policy  of  internal 
improvements,  as  it  would  doubtless  also  have 
been  enlisted  against  protection  but  for  the 
method  which  the  Carolinians  took  to  fight  it. 
Jackson  himself  early  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
Congress  had  no  right  to  appropriate  money  for 
the  Maysville  road.  Like  Monroe,  he  based  his 
veto  on  constitutional  grounds;  and  no  doubt 
the  constitutional  objection  had  great  weight 
with  the  majority  of  Southern  men  in  Congress, 
who  first  sustained  such  vetoes,  and  then,  grow- 
ing stronger  and  stronger,  often  relieved  the 
successors  of  Jackson  of  the  responsibility  of  the 
veto  by  defeating  similar  measures  in  one  house 


68  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

or  the  other.  But  the  economic  consideration, 
I  feel  sure,  was  also  potent,  though  vaguely.  In- 
ternal improvements  and  high  tariffs  went  hand 
in  hand;  they  were  policies  sprung  from  the 
same  general  motive  and  principle,  and  the 
same  impulse  that  set  the  representatives  of 
the  plantation  system  against  the  one  set  them 
against  the  other  also.  The  cotton  planter  felt 
that  he  paid  more  than  his  share  of  the  expense 
of  governmental  enterprises,  and  he  also  felt 
that  he  got  less  than  his  share  of  the  benefits. 
It  is  not  probable  that  he  made  even  to  him- 
self a  confession  of  the  weakness  of  his  indus- 
trial system  which  would  prevent  his  getting 
a  fair  share  of  the  fruits  of  a  national  policy, 
but  he  may  have  felt,  as  unstudious  citizens 
often  do,  an  antagonism  of  interests  which  he 
did  not  clearly  reason  out.  A  direct  consequence 
of  opening  highways  and  dredging  rivers  and 
improving  harbors  is  to  thicken  population,  and 
the  plantation  system  made  for  sparseness  of 
population.  Another  effect  is  to  build  up  cities, 
and  few  cities  so  built  up  were  likely  to  arise 
below  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  In  a  word,  the 
great  majority  of  internal  improvements  could 
fully  justify  themselves,  and  confer  the  maximum 


THE  LOWER   SOUTH  69 

of  benefits,  only  where  industry  could  be  diver- 
sified. They  would  benefit  the  new  states  of 
the  Northwest,  given  over  to  free  labor,  far 
more  than  they  could  benefit  the  lower  South. 

The  attempts  to  revive  the  policy  after  its  first 
overthrow  grew  feebler  and  feebler.  A  recent 
historian  of  political  parties  thinks  that  the  Whigs 
might  have  had  a  better  chance  after  1850  if  they 
had  taken  it  up  vigorously  again.  But  almost  the 
last  words  Clay  ever  pronounced  in  the  senate- 
chamber  were  spoken  in  vain  defence  of  a  river 
and  harbor  bill  carrying  less  than  two  and  a 
half  million  dollars.  The  policy  could  not  be 
revived  successfully  until  the  Cotton  states  with- 
drew from  the  Union.  Only  their  withdrawal,  and 
the  subsequent  military  conquest  of  them,  and  the 
overthrow  of  their  industrial  system,  made  it  possi- 
ble for  a  different  set  of  industrial  interests  so  to 
control  Congress  and  the  courts  that  nowadays  a 
river  and  harbor  bill,  carrying  tens  of  millions, 
encounters  its  most  serious  obstacle  in  the  desire  of 
individual  congressmen  to  increase  the  total  with 
provisions  for  the  benefit  of  their  particular  dis- 
tricts and  states. 

On  questions  of  public  finance,  the  influence  of 
the  men  of  the  Cotton  states,  though  not,  perhaps, 


70  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

so  controlling  an  influence,  was  a  very  strong  one ; 
and  in  two  very  clear  ways  the  plantation  system 
helped  to  determine  the  course  of  Southern  public 
opinion  and  public  men  on  such  questions. 

The  first  way  was  by  preventing  the  growth 
of  great  cities.  At  the  present  time,  no  student  of 
public  finance  needs  to  be  told  that  the  cities  and 
the  country  districts  are  apt  to  take  contrary  sides 
in  financial  discussions,  though  the  alignment 
has  varied  markedly  from  time  to  time  in  our  his- 
tory. The  Southern  people  had,  as  a  rule,  a  coun- 
try view  and  not  a  city  view  of  finance.  The 
second  way  in  which  the  plantation  system  had  its 
effect  in  such  controversies  was  more  definite. 
It  made  it  necessary  to  transact  most  of  the 
business  of  exchange,  and  so  created  a  strong 
demand  for  money,  at  one  time  of  year,  —  the  har- 
vest time,  —  while  in  other  seasons  there  was  very 
little  business  requiring  the  use  of  a  medium  of 
exchange.  If  the  cotton  planter  found  money 
scarce  at  the  harvest  time,  he  got  less  for  his 
product,  and  had  lesser  balances  accredited  to  him 
on  the  books  of  his  agent  at  New  Orleans  or  Mo- 
bile or  Charleston ;  but  if  the  money  supply  in- 
creased at  other  seasons,  he  was  a  loser,  because 
of  the  heightened  charges  entered  against  him 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  fi 

in  his  agent's  books  for  the  tools  and  supplies 
advanced  to  him  while  he  planted  and  tended  the 
next  crop.  This  consideration  was  strong  in  all 
agricultural  communities,  but  strongest  where  but 
one  great  crop  was  grown,  and  where  agriculture 
was  the  only  important  industry.  What  the  plant- 
ers of  the  country  chiefly  desired,  therefore,  and 
the  cotton  planters  most  of  all,  was  a  currency  that 
could  be  expanded  during  the  brief  business  sea- 
son in  the  autumn.  They  naturally  favored  state 
banks,  because  they  were  more  amenable  to  the 
demands  of  regions  remote  from  the  great  centres 
of  business  than  a  national  bank  or  any  system  of 
national  banks  could  well  be.  Their  remoteness 
from  the  great  centres,  and  their  unfamiliarity 
with  large  business  operations,  naturally  inspired 
them  with  fear  and  distrust  of  such  an  institution 
as  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  A  few  of  the 
larger  planters,  who  had  a  liking  for  such  insti- 
tutions as  seemed  clearly  to  promote  the  stability 
of  the  country,  and  an  affiliation  with  propertied 
men  of  all  sections,  probably  did  not  share  this 
fear.  But  as  Mr.  Cairnes  points  out,  the  very 
largest  planters  were  generally  borrowers,  because 
their  constant  tendency  was  to  enlarge  their 
holdings,  and  so  they,  as  well  as  other  classes  in 


72  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

the  Cotton  states,  were  generally  drawn  to  favor 
state  banks,  with  abundant  power  to  issue  notes 
and  lend  them  on  all  sorts  of  securities.  Presi- 
dent Jackson  got  much  support  from  the  South 
throughout  his  long  fight  with  the  national  bank. 
All  the  states  of  the  lower  South  had  their  bank 
systems,  their  flush  times,  and  their  experiments  of 
cheap  money,  and  all  suffered  severely  from  the 
collapse  and  reaction  that  followed.  That  experi- 
ence the  West  had  also,  and  the  blame  for  the 
state  banks  cannot  be  put  upon  the  South  alone. 
But  the  growth  of  population  and  of  cities  in  the 
West  brought  about  a  different  feeling  there  on 
questions  of  finance,  while  the  South  remained 
as  it  was.  As  to  the  national  bank,  the  succes- 
sive attempts  to  revive  it  were  usually  opposed 
by  Southern  opinion  and  resisted  by  the  mass  of 
Southern  public  men.  As  we  know,  those  attempts 
were  not  successful,  and  in  finance,  as  in  the  mat- 
ter of  tariffs  and  internal  improvements,  the  so- 
called  national  policy  was  not  revived  until  the 
lower  South  was  no  longer  represented  in  Con- 
gress. 

On  these  great  domestic  questions,  then,  the 
power  of  the  lower  South  was  exercised  quite 
consistently  on  the  side  which  Jefferson  would 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  73 

most  probably  have  taken.  It  was  directed,  in 
general,  against  those  forces  which  tended  to 
strengthen  the  government  at  Washington.  And 
yet,  when  the  old  Republican  party  was  divided, 
the  great  planters  and  their  associates  did  not,  as 
a  rule,  join  the  Democratic  party.  On  the  con- 
trary, probably  a  majority  of  them  were  Whigs. 
We  know,  at  least,  that  in  most  Southern  states 
the  districts  which  usually  returned  Whigs  to 
Congress  were  the  districts  in  which  the  big 
plantations,  the  rich  black  lands,  and  the  bulk 
of  the  slaves  were  found.  These  men  were 
influenced  by  such  general  considerations  and 
sympathies,  and  maintained  such  a  generally 
conservative  attitude  toward  society,  as  would 
have  made  them  Tories  in  England.  Still,  whether 
the  great  planter  was  a  Whig  or  a  Democrat, 
he  usually  stood  with  his  fellows  whenever  the 
interests  of  his  section  or  his  class  were  clearly 
threatened,  and  so  did  the  Southern  Whigs  at 
Washington. 

But  the  greatest  of  the  victories  which  the 
plantation  interest  won  at  Washington  was  not 
won  in  the  advocacy  of  a  Jeffersonian  weak-gov- 
ernment policy,  but  of  a  policy  which,  as  we 
have  been  often  told  of  late,  inevitably  tends  to 


74  THE  LOWER  SOUTH' 

strengthen  a  national  government  at  the  expense 
of  smaller  communities,  no  less  than  at  the  expense 
of  the  liberty  of  individuals.  These  triumphs  were 
won  in  the  foreign  relations  of  the  Republic.  The 
power  of  the  plantation  and  the  slave  availed  not 
merely  to  keep  the  government  from  doing  things 
but  also  to  make  the  government  do  things  of  a 
very  positive  sort.  It  could  lower  tariffs,  and  stop 
the  progress  of  the  Maysville  road,  and  over- 
throw the  bank  ;  it  could  also  organize  armies  and 
fleets,  it  could  extend  our  limits,  it  could  play  a 
part  in  that  world  movement  of  the  English  stock 
which  we  to-day  understand  so  much  more  clearly, 
and  approve  or  condemn  so  much  more  intelli- 
gently, than  we  ever  did  before. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  attribute  the  course  of 
the  public  men  of  the  lower  South  on  domestic 
questions  entirely  to  the  economic  demands  of  their 
industrial  system,  ignoring  the  character,  the  po- 
litical connections,  the  inherited  sympathies  and 
tendencies,  of  the  people.  Similarly,  it  would  be 
a  mistake  to  attribute  their  course  on  foreign 
questions  entirely  to  the  demand  for  fresh  lands 
for  slavery  to  spread  into,  clearly  as  we  can  suit 
the  effect  to  the  cause.  In  this  also,  less  plain, 
less  definite  forces  were  at  work.  Expansion  is 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  75 

characteristic  of  young  and  strong  peoples;  it 
is  a  marked  characteristic  of  the  English-speaking 
peoples.  Of  the  two  or  three  white  stocks  that 
peopled  the  lower  South,  not  one  was  wanting  in 
the  adventurous  pioneer  impulse;  indeed,  the 
generalization  is  reasonably  true  of  the  whole 
American  people  up  to  the  time  of  which  we  are 
speaking.  In  the  North,  that  impulse  spent  itself 
somewhat  hi  business.  In  the  South,  what  took  the 
place  of  business  was  not  of  a  nature  to  satisfy 
it.  Moreover,  the  South  was  closer  to  those 
Latin-American  States  which  alone,  in  those  days 
before  the  Golden  Gate  of  the  Pacific  had  been 
opened,  tempted  adventurous  Americans  with 
their  weakness  and  their  show  of  wealth.  What 
wonder,  then,  that  the  Southern  planter,  moody 
with  the  loneliness  and  monotony  of  his  life,  felt 
within  him,  from  time  to  time,  stirrings  of  the  old 
adventurous  spirit  ?  What  wonder  if,  even  though 
his  peculiar  social  system  gave  within  a  few  years 
a  look  of  antiquity  to  communities  whose  whole 
life  was  compassed  by  the  lifetime  of  one  man,  he 
soon  longed  for  fresh  experiences,  enemies  to  fight, 
strange  civilizations  to  penetrate  and  overthrow  ? 
Into  the  dull  recitative  of  his  plantation  days  there 
broke,  again  and  again,  the  bold,  clear  notes  of 


76  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

the  old  buccaneer  theme.  He  could  not,  like 
Ralegh  and  Drake  and  Hawkins,  pursue  his  race 
ideal  over  the  salt  seas,  but  the  mystery  of  the 
Southwestern  plains  was  not  less  tempting.  That 
way,  too,  the  track  of  the  Spaniard  led;  and  to 
the  southeastward,  almost  in  sight  from  the  Florida 
coast,  were  other  Spaniards  to  despoil.  Arkan- 
sas, the  last  of  the  Southern  states  to  be  carved 
out  of  the  Louisiana  purchase,  was  not  yet  in 
the  Union,  when  men  like  Bowie  and  Travis  and 
Crockett  and  Houston  were  already  in  Texas. 
A  little  later,  filibuster  expeditions  were  landing 
on  the  coast  of  Cuba,  and  the  public  men  of  the 
lower  South  at  Washington,  turning  more  and 
more  from  small  things  to  great,  were  directing 
American  diplomacy  to  the  purchase  of  Cuba  and 
the  annexation  of  Texas. 

No  doubt,  the  economic  and  political  exigencies 
of  slavery  had  their  part  in  all  this.  Already,  in 
the  forties,  some  lands  were  exhausted  even  in 
so  new  a  country  as  Alabama.  To  maintain  its 
equality  in  the  Senate,  the  South  must  get  more 
slave  states  somewhere.  But  surely  it  is  not  nec- 
essary to  attribute  to  a  particular  and  reasoned 
motive  alone  what  resulted  before,  and  has  resulted 
since,  from  a  simple  and  general  impulse.  In  the 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  77 

face  of  very  recent  history,  it  is  hard  to  deny  that 
the  filibusters  and  the  Texans  were  doing  just 
what  their  ancestors  had  been  doing  for  four 
hundred  years,  and  what  we  did  but  yesterday.  If 
we  look  for  a  parallel  to  the  Alamo,  where  none 
would  fly  while  escape  was  possible,  and  not  one 
man  yielded  when  all  hope  of  victory  was  gone,  or 
to  Crittenden's  desperate  enterprise  in  Cuba,  we 
find  it  in  no  land  battle,  but  in  the  last  fight  of 
the  Revenge,  and  Grenville's  order  to  the  master- 
gunner  "  to  split  and  sinke  the  shippe;  that  thereby 
nothing  might  remaine  of  glorie  or  victorie  to  the 
Spaniards."  Slavery  had  to  do  with  the  seizure 
of  Texas  and  the  attempts  upon  Cuba.  But  we 
may  not  attribute  to  that  alone  this  single  act  in 
the  long  drama  which  began  before  the  first  slave 
landed  in  Virginia  and  ended  in  1898.  The  true 
cause  of  it  was  that  old  land  hunger  which  half 
the  world  has  not  satisfied.  If  Southern  adven- 
turers and  Southern  statesmen  took  the  lead  in  it, 
their  leadership  was  due  to  their  whole  training 
and  character  and  life ;  it  was  not  due  entirely  to 
the  fact  that  they  were  slave-owners,  and  that 
slavery  must  keep  spreading  or  perish. 

In  Texas,  they  had  their  way  with  little  diffi- 
culty.    The  first  fight,  for  the  independence  of  the 


78  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

state,  being  won,  the  second  fight,  for  annexation, 
was  sure  to  go  in  their  favor.  We  all  know  how 
Tyler  was  brought  into  line  for  annexation ;  how 
Clay,  in  his  last  effort  to  win  the  presidency,  lost 
the  votes  of  the  Free-soil  men  by  disclaiming,  in 
certain  letters  to  an  Alabama  slaveholder,  all 
opposition  to  admitting  Texas  save  from  the  fear 
that  the  Union  might  be  endangered ;  and  how,  as 
against  Polk,  an  avowed  annexationist,  he  failed 
to  win  any  votes  by  his  concession  to  the  lower 
South.  When  the  last  act  came  on,  and  Mexico 
had  to  be  conquered,  it  was  mainly  volunteers  from 
the  Cotton  states,  joined  by  a  few  of  their  North- 
ern friends,  like  Franklin  Pierce,  who  swelled 
our  little  army  to  the  strength  the  enterprise 
demanded.  As  it  happened,  Taylof,  who  fought 
his  way  to  the  presidency  in  that  war,  was  a 
Louisianian  and  a  planter,  and  among  those  who 
followed  him  was  his  son-in-law,  Jefferson  Davis. 
Quitman,  who  had  once  resigned  his  place  as 
governor  of  Mississippi  in  order  to  stand  a  trial 
for  filibustering,  raised  the  flag  over  the  city 
•of  Mexico.  A  host  of  new  names,  with  which 
the  whole  world  rang  a  few  years  later,  were 
first  made  known  by  honorable  mention  in  the 
despatches.  The  whole  enterprise,  from  the 


THE  LOWER   SOUTH  79 

Alamo  to  Cherubusco,  and  all  that  came  of  it 
in  new  territories  and  new  states,  was  part  of 
the  record  of  the  lower  South's  ascendency  in 
the  Union. 

But  the  sailing  in  Cuban  waters  was  rougher 
then  than  it  has  proved  in  our  time.  Northern 
opposition  did  not  indeed  prevail  in  that  matter  any 
more  than  in  the  Texas  movement.  It  was  con- 
ciliated or  beaten  down  so  effectually  that  Bu- 
chanan could  be  elected  President  after  signing  the 
Ostend  Manifesto,  which  declared  that,  if  Spain 
refused  to  sell  us  Cuba,  necessity,  and  particularly 
military  necessity,  might  justify  us  in  seizing  it. 
But  filibustering  failed.  Soute,  the  fiery  Creole, 
sent  to  Madrid  with  a  special  view  to  getting  us 
Cuba,  found  duelling  pistols  and  small  swords  no 
more  effective  instruments  than  notes  and  mani- 
festos against  Spain's  firm  resolve  to  keep  her 
hold  on  the  island  which  seemed  so  ready  to  fall 
into  our  grasp.  For  once,  the  ancient  enemy  pre- 
vailed ;  and  none  of  us  can  fail  to  admire  the  pride, 
the  dignity,  the  majesty,  of  the  defiance  she  sent 
back  to  us  then,  even  in  the  light  which  has  since 
been  thrown  upon  her  weakness.  It  is  curious  that 
the  first  reverse  the  men  of  the  lower  South  ever 
met  in  their  thirty  years  of  rule  and  conquest  should 


8O  THE  LOWER   SOUTH 

have  come  from  such  a  source.  The  contrast  is 
striking  between  their  steady  and  masterful  prog- 
ress to  their  end  in  the  controversy  with  Mexico 
and  the  fiasco  which  came  of  every  attempt  they 
made  upon  Cuba. 

But  in  all  things  else  their  ascendency  at  Wash- 
ington at  the  middle  of  the  century  was  clearer 
than  ever.  Save  when  a  president  died  in  office, 
the  White  House  was  generally  occupied  either 
by  a  Southerner  of  their  own  band  or  by  a  North- 
ern man  of  their  choice.  In  the  lower  House  of 
Congress,  the  great  committees  were  commonly 
headed  by  their  representatives.  Two  chairmen 
of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee  came  from  the 
particular  Cotton  state  of  which  I  have  spoken. 
In  the  Senate,  as  Calhoun  and  Webster  and  Clay 
successively  disappeared,  the  true  leaders  were 
such  men  as  Butler,  of  South  Carolina,  Toombs 
and  Cobb,  of  Georgia,  Benjamin  and  Soul6,  of 
Louisiana,  William  R.  King,  and  C.  C.  Clay,  of 
Alabama,  and  Jefferson  Davis  of  Mississippi.  The 
representatives  and  senators  from  New  Eng- 
land, many  of  them  able  and  accomplished  men, 
had  no  more  leadership  than  their  predecessors 
had  in  those  days,  just  before  the  reply  to  Hayne, 
when  a  New  England  congressman  could  be  rec- 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  8 1 

ognized  by  his  deprecatory  manner.  Western  men 
were  frequently  in  alliance  with  the  Southerners, 
as  in  the  case  of  Douglas  and  Cass.  Men  from 
the  Middle  states,  like  Buchanan,  went  even  far- 
ther to  promote  their  ends.  Those  who  occasion- 
ally stood  out  against  them  did  so  at  the  expense 
of  any  ambition  they  might  entertain  for  the  high- 
est places.  In  cabinet  after  cabinet,  the  leading 
places  went  to  them  and  their  friends.  The 
Supreme  Court,  under  Taney,  was  as  little  likely 
to  thwart  them  as  Congress  or  the  President,  for 
the  majority  of  the  court  was  now  guided  by 
Jefferson's  ideas  of  the  government,  instead  of 
Marshall's. 

It  remains  for  us  to  follow  them  in  the  fight 
they  had  to  make  for  the  fruits  of  their  victories — 
to  see  them  meeting  a  resistance,  for  the  first  time 
truly  firm  and  wise,  which  in  the  Northwest  en- 
larged into  a  great  political  movement  that  which 
in  the  Northeast  had  been  merely  a  protest.  We 
shall  see  them  trampling  upon  the  antislavery 
sentiment  of  New  England,  only  to  find  the  hateful 
seed  bursting  out  of  Western  prairies  vaster  than 
their  own  Black  Belt.  We  shall  see  them  profiting 
in  election  after  election  by  the  folly  of  Free-soil- 
ers  and  Liberty  men,  only  to  suffer  by  the  rise  of 


82  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

the  Republicans.  We  shall  see  them  hanging 
John  Brown  with  all  the  right  forms  and  generous 
delays  of  a  just  law,  only  to  face,  over  the  grave  of 
a  misguided  visionary,  that  practical,  reasonable, 
pliant,  and  unconquerable  force  of  public  opin- 
ion which  Abraham  Lincoln,  sprung  obscurely 
from  their  own  Virginian  line,  was  sent  into  the 
world  to  summon  up,  to  guide,  to  restrain,  and  to 
obey. 


THE   FINAL   STRUGGLE  IN   THE   UNION 

OUR  study,  sweeping  as  it  is,  of  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  Cotton  states,  and  of  the  effects 
of  the  rise  of  those  states  on  the  political  his- 
tory of  the  whole  country  up  to  the  year  1850, 
permits  us  now  to  examine,  still  in  broad  outline, 
the  motives,  the  character,  and  the  larger  signifi- 
cance of  the  last  struggle  which  the  champions 
of  that  civilization  made  to  maintain  its  political 
ascendency  in  the  Union.  The  struggle  for 
ascendency  was,  in  fact,  a  struggle  for  existence. 
As  I  have  tried  to  point  out,  the  lower  South 
was  from  the  beginning  under  a  necessity  either 
to  control  the  national  government  or  radically 
to  change  its  own  industrial  and  social  system. 

Let  us  first,  still  keeping,  so  far  as  possible,  our 
inside  point  of  view,  and  looking  out  upon  the 
whole  country  from  the  windows,  as  it  were,  of 
the  civilization  which  we  have  been  studying,  try 
to  see  what  dangers  the  Southerner  of  1850  had 
to  guard  against,  what  enemies  he  had  to  fight. 

On  nearly  all  of  the  domestic  questions  debated 
83 


84  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

between  1820  and  1850,  the  men  of  the  lower 
South  had  been  on  that  side  which  a  certain  gen- 
eral theory  of  government,  the  Jeffersonian  Demo- 
cratic theory,  might  have  led  them  to  take,  and  did 
lead  many  Northern  men  to  take,  quite  without  ref- 
erence to  sectional  interests  and  antagonisms.  That 
general  theory  undoubtedly  had  great  weight  with 
the  Southerners  themselves.  We  know  that  South- 
erners could  be  so  influenced,  for  a  contrary  gen- 
eral view  of  the  government  prevailed  quite  ap- 
preciably among  Southerners  of  certain  classes, 
although  in  cases  of  a  clear  conflict  of  sectional 
interests  over  specific  subjects  the  conflict  of  gen- 
eral theories  among  themselves  rarely  availed  seri- 
ously to  divide  the  men  of  the  lower  South,  how- 
ever it  might  divide  the  men  of  Virginia  and  the 
border  states.  Nevertheless,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
course  of  the  lower  South  on  these  great  domestic 
questions  was  also  in  accord  with  the  economic  and 
political  demands  of  its  civilization,  and  it  must  be 
said  that  its  public  men  had  their  way  on  all  of 
them. 

In  consequence,  there  was  now  no  serious 
threat  to  their  civilization  from  the  tariff,  from  the 
policy  of  internal  development  and  improvement,  or 
from  the  system  of  public  finance.  Whether  or 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  85 

not  those  general  principles  on  which  the  public 
men  of  the  Cotton  states  had  acted  in  domestic 
affairs  while  they  were  ruling  the  country  were 
just  principles,  good  for  the  whole  country,  at 
least  the  North  made,  in  1850,  no  such  resist- 
ance to  their  policies  as  to  reveal  any  clear  con- 
flict of  industrial  interests  or  to  show  any  reason 
why,  so  far  as  the  tariff,  finance,  and  ordinary 
governmental  enterprises  were  concerned,  the  two 
social  orders,  unlike  as  they  were,  might  not  go 
on  existing  side  by  side  under  the  government  at 
Washington,  so  long  as  the  government's  ener- 
gies were  confined  within  the  limits  assigned  to  it 
by  the  majority  of  state  rights  judges  now  on  the 
supreme  bench.  So  long  as  the  North  did  not 
revolt  against  declining  tariff  rates,  or  insistently 
demand  internal  improvements,  or  try  to  tear 
down  the  subtreasuries  and  clamor  for  a  bank,  it 
could  not  be  said  that  there  was  any  irrepressible 
conflict  of  an  industrial  sort.  The  very  unlike- 
ness  of  the  two  systems  seemed  to  preclude  rivalry 
while  they  were  confined  to  separate  regions. 

So,  too,  in  the  matter  of  foreign  relations.  No 
important  Northern  interest  was  distinctly  endan- 
gered by  that  aggressive  foreign  policy  which  the 
Southern  leaders  initiated  in  the  forties.  The 


86  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

tendency  of  such  a  policy  to  strengthen  the  na- 
tional government  was  certainly  not  apt  to  arouse 
any  violent  Northern  opposition.  Its  tendency 
to  enlarge  the  republic  physically  appealed  to  a 
feeling  which,  however  absorption  in  business  and 
in  the  occupation  of  the  West  may  have  obscured 
it,  was  just  as  strong  in  Northern  men  as  in  South- 
ern men.  It  had  not  as  yet  led  to  any  great 
increase  in  the  size  and  expense  of  our  military 
and  naval  establishments.  It  had  brought  us  into 
no  entanglements  or  conflicts  inimical  to  the  trade 
of  Eastern  cities. 

So  far,  then,  as  hindsight  avails  us,  thoughtful 
Southerners  in  1850  could  not  have  seen,  though 
in  point  of  fact  some  restless  Southern  minds  per- 
suaded themselves  that  they  did  see,  any  threat 
to  their  civilization  from  specific  material  interests 
in  the  North.  Some  Southerners  did  contend  that 
what  was  left  of  the  protective  system  was  stifling 
their  main  industry,  which  could  only  grow  to  its 
full  proportions  in  an  atmosphere  of  absolute  free 
trade ;  and  some,  that  manufactures  could  be 
developed  below  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  if  only 
that  line  could  be  made  the  boundary  between  sep- 
arate nations,  and  the  people  south  of  it  roused  to 
a  proper  sense  of  the  ignominy  of  buying  ploughs 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  87 

and  hoes  and  furniture  and  books  from  Yankees 
simply  because  Yankees  made  them  better  and 
sold  them  cheaper.  There  were  Charlestonians 
who  could  not  understand  why  Charleston  had 
stopped  growing  and  New  York  and  Boston  had 
kept  on,  unless  it  was  because  the  government 
somehow  helped  New  York  and  Boston  at  the 
expense  of  Charleston.  Such  ideas  were  often 
advanced  in  the  Southern  commercial  conventions, 
which  were  held  so  frequently,  and  so  well  at- 
tended, that  they  may  be  taken  to  indicate  a 
feeling  of  industrial  unrest  and  discontent ;  but 
they  did  not  mislead  the  whole  Southern  people. 
Yancey,  the  Secessionist,  once  plainly  stated  a 
contrary  view  when  he  said  that  in  Washington 
there  were  two  temples,  —  one  for  the  South,  and 
one  for  the  North.  The  first  was  the  Capitol, 
where  Southern  public  men  had  so  long  exercised 
a  power  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers  and 
to  the  numbers  they  represented.  The  other  was 
the  Patent  Office,  where  the  untrammelled  intellect 
of  the  North,  dealing  with  material  problems,  had 
registered  its  triumphs.  To  make  his  figure  fairer 
still,  he  might  have  joined  the  National  Library 
to  the  Patent  Office,  for  the  Northern  intellect, 
though  it  had  made  no  contribution  of  the  first 


88  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

value  to  the  world's  inquiry  into  the  things  of  the 
spirit,  had,  nevertheless,  already  freed  America  from 
the  reproach  of  literary  barrenness  and  proved  that 
our  civilization  could  bear  other  fruit  than  wealth. 
And  it  was  the  belated  concern  of  the  Northern 
mind  about  the  things  of  the  spirit,  not  its  absorp- 
tion in  material  enterprises,  that  boded  ill  to  the 
plantation  system.  It  was  the  North's  moral 
awakening,  and  not  its  industrial  alertness,  its 
free  thought,  and  not  its  free  labor,  which  the 
Southern  planter  had  to  fear.  The  New  England 
factory  made  no  threat,  the  town  meeting  did. 
The  Northwestern  wheat  farms  and  pork  pack- 
eries  and  railways  were  harmless ;  but  Oberlin 
College  and  Lovejoy's  printing-press  and  the  un- 
derground railway  were  different.  It  was  not 
the  actual  material  ascendency  of  the  North  which 
endangered  the  plantation  system,  though  sooner 
or  later,  by  sheer  weight  of  population,  the  politi- 
cal ascendency  of  the  South  might  have  been  over- 
come. The  true  danger  from  without  was  in  the 
moral  and  intellectual  forces  which  were  at  once 
the  cause  and  the  result  of  the  North's  prog- 
ress. It  was  in  that  freedom  of  individual  men 
which  had  made  the  North  prosper,  and  in  that 
national  feeling,  that  national  theory  of  the  govern- 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  89 

ment,  that  national  antagonism  to  whatever  was 
weak  or  alien  under  the  flag,  which  had  resulted 
from  the  development  and  the  denser  peopling 
of  the  North.  The  final  conflict  came  only  when 
these  things  were  thrown  clearly  into  competition 
with  the  picturesque  Old  World  social  system,  the 
limited  nationalism,  the  unprogressive  industrial 
contrivances  of  the  South  for  the  occupation  of 
new  lands.  The  frontal  attacks  of  the  abolitionist 
light  brigade  could  enrage  and  annoy  the  planter, 
but  they  could  not  seriously  weaken  the  planta- 
tion system.  The  Free-soil  emigrant  could  and 
did  endanger  it. 

But  he  did  not  overthrow  it.  The  end,  unlike 
as  it  was  in  the  way  it  came  about  to  the  aboli- 
tionists' fevered  fancies,  was  equally  unlike  the 
emigrant's  saner  forethought.  It  did  not  come 
through  the  slow  dying  out  of  a  thing  that  must 
spread  or  perish.  It  came  through  the  defiant  act 
of  the  Southerners  themselves.  The  revolt  of  the 
North  could  have  done  no  more  than  put  slavery 
on  the  way  to  extinction ;  that  was  Lincoln's 
hope,  as  it  had  been  Jefferson's.  We  cannot  see 
clearly  what  actually  happened  unless  we  again  go 
inside  of  Southern  civilization,  observe  the  forces 
that  threatened  it  from  within,  and  humanly  un- 


9O  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

derstand  what  purposes  and  impulses  governed 
the  Southerners  themselves  while  they  were  fight- 
ing these  as  well  as  the  enemies  from  without. 
For  notwithstanding  all  the  triumphs  they  had 
won  in  legislation,  in  diplomacy,  and  on  Mexican 
battlefields,  the  people  of  the  lower  South  were 
themselves  growing  discontent.  That  which  had 
happened  in  Virginia  and  along  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board was  coming  about  on  the  Gulf,  though  it 
was  not  yet  entirely  come  about,  because  the 
Gulf  states  were  still  very  young,  and  only  the 
richest  of  their  lands  were  exhausted.  But  in 
the  very  shrillness  and  fierceness  of  the  replies 
that  the  men  of  the  South  made  to  every  attack 
on  their  system  one  detects  their  own  restlessness 
under  its  limitations.  Let  us  remember  that  they 
were  still  the  purest  representatives  on  the  con- 
tinent of  its  very  strongest  stocks.  Unlike  the 
Spaniards  who  first  explored  their  lands,  and 
who,  in  Mexico  and  South  America,  had  inter- 
mingled and  intermarried  with  weaker  races,  these 
Englishmen  and  Scotch-Irishmen  and  French 
Huguenots,  though  they  mingled  and  intermarried 
with  each  other,  and  got  strength  thereby,  had 
guarded  themselves,  by  perpetuating  an  institu- 
tion out  of  keeping  with  their  times,  from  the  very 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  91 

possibility  of  anything  like  equality,  not  to  say 
intermingling,  with  the  lesser  tribes.  There  was 
never,  for  them,  any  danger  of  that  course.  The 
same  institution  which  hampered  them  in  their 
efforts  to  keep  pace  with  their  fellows  in  the 
North  and  in  old  England  kept  alive  in  them 
every  impulse  and  characteristic  with  which  their 
fellows  had  begun. 

They  did  not,  as  the  Virginians  had  done, 
begin  to  question  the  wisdom  or  Tightness  of  their 
life.  Before  they  reached  that  point,  Northern 
abolitionists  had  raised  the  question  first.  The 
abolitionists,  like  all  forerunners  and  prophets, 
were  more  intent  on  discharging  their  message 
than  on  the  actual  effect  of  it.  They  did  not 
hint  and  insinuate  and  reason  gently,  as  even 
a  man  of  the  world  does  when  he  tries  to  help 
his  friend  out  of  an  error ;  they  did  not,  like  the 
true  model  of  all  reformers,  combine  the  wis- 
dom of  serpents  and  the  harmlessness  of  doves. 
They  merely  lifted  up  their  voices  and  spared 
not.  That  they  were  dealing  with  the  proudest 
and  most  sensitive  people  in  the  world  did  not 
occur  to  them  any  more  than  it  seems  to  occur 
to  those  well-meaning  persons  who,  intent  mainly 
on  freeing  their  own  minds  and  keeping  their 


92  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

own  skirts  clean,  stand  afar  off  and  tell  the 
Southerners  of  our  own  day  how  very  badly  they 
are  doing  under  the  conditions  left  to  them  by 
defeat  in  war  and  the  reconstruction  of  their 
governments  by  alien  hands.  Making  men  the 
subject  of  withering  editorials  and  fiercely  de- 
nunciatory sermons  is  not  a  particularly  wise  way 
to  help  them.  Objurgation  —  the  objurgatory 
method  of"  reform  —  is  effective  sometimes  with 
weak  men,  particularly  if  it  is  accompanied  with 
a  show  of  force;  it  is  sometimes,  I  believe,  suc- 
cessfully employed  with  refractory  mules.  But 
objurgation  from  afar  off,  without  any  show  or 
threat  of  force  behind  it,  could  hardly  accom- 
plish anything  with  men  like  those  of  the  lower 
South.  So  far  as  the  early  abolitionist  move- 
ment had  any  effect  at  all  on  these  men,  it  was 
to  confirm  them  in  their  adherence  to  an  order 
of  things  which  they,  like  the  Virginians,  would 
surely  have  come  to  question  when  they  were 
made  to  feel  its  economic  shortcomings.  Aboli- 
tionism as  a  force  in  Northern  society  was 
valuable  and  admirable,  leavening  the  whole 
mass ;  it  was  the  right  and  natural  way  for  the 
Northern  revolt  to  begin.  Abolitionism  as  it  ap- 
peared to  Southern  society  was  an  interference 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  93 

from  without,  harsh  and  cruel  and  unjust,  dis- 
playing constantly  its  ignorance  of  essential  facts, 
and  proceeding  on  lines  contrary  to  the  human 
nature  alike  of  the  master,  whom  it  attacked  so 
bitterly,  and  of  the  slave  himself,  who  would 
never  have  understood  its  appeal,  and  who  never 
would  have  loved  the  foremost  leaders  in  it  any 
more  than  those  leaders  themselves  would  have 
relished  the  close  personal  relations'  with  Afri- 
cans which  the  Southern  master  did  not  find 
unpleasant. 

The  leading  men  of  the  lower  South  displayed 
a  constantly  heightening  pride,  and  a  more  and 
more  stubborn  unwillingness  to  concede  anything 
whatever  to  the  outside  opponents  of  their  sys- 
tem. On  the  contrary,  they  set  to  work  vigor- 
ously debating  the  best  means  of  extending  it 
and  all  possible  means  of  engrafting  upon  it 
those  modern  appliances  by  which  science  has 
revolutionized  the  methods  of  production.  They 
tried  to  bring  it  into  some  sort  of  harmony, 
crude  and  primitive  as  it  was,  with  modern  life. 
They  had  some  reason,  some  truth,  behind  them. 
No  industrial  system  similar  to  the  North's  could 
possibly  be  established  while  the  main  part  of  the 
laboring  population  of  the  South  was  made  up  of 


94  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

ignorant  Africans,  no  matter  whether  they  were 
slaves  or  not.  Whether  Alexander  H.  Stephens  was 
right  or  wrong  when  he  said  that  the  South  should 
act  on  the  principle  that  white  men  are  naturally 
superior  to  black  men,  thirty-five  years  of  freedom 
have  proved,  what  Lincoln  seems  to  have  under- 
stood, that  the  real  cause  of  all  the  trouble  was 
not  slavery,  but  the  presence  of  Africans  in  the 
South  in  large  numbers.  The  leaders  of  Southern 
thought  in  the  forties  and  fifties  were  trying  to  do 
just  what  the  leading  men  of  the  South  are  trying 
to  do  now,  viz.  :  to  discover  some  way  or  ways  by 
which  a  society  made  up  of  whites  and  blacks  in 
almost  equal  proportions  can  keep  pace  with  a 
society  made  up  of  whites  only.  Their  plan  was 
to  keep  the  blacks  at  the  bottom,  the  whites  on 
top.  It  did  not  succeed  very  well,  but  it  suc- 
ceeded better  than  the  plan  adopted  in  Recon- 
struction times  of  putting  the  blacks  on  top  and 
the  whites  at  the  bottom.  Whether  the  third 
plan  of  setting  both  on  the  same  level  and  letting 
them  work  out  their  destiny  side  by  side  will  ever, 
human  nature,  black  and  white,  being  what  it  is, 
have  a  chance  to  show  its  superiority  to  the  other 
two  plans,  is  a  question  which  even  to-day  no  man 
can  answer. 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  95 

The  Southerners  of  the  fifties  had  not  much 
success  in  their  efforts  to  improve  and  extend 
their  industrial  system  without  essentially  chang- 
ing it.  They  made  an  especial  effort  to  improve 
their  methods  of  transportation.  Their  enthusiasm 
over  railroads  was  equal  to  their  earlier  enthusiasm 
over  banks.  In  Alabama,  the  particular  Cotton 
state  which  I  have  chosen  for  purposes  of  illustra- 
tion, there  was  a  sort  of  frenzy  over  railroads  in 
the  middle  of  the  fifties.  A  whole  system  of  trunk 
lines  was  planned,  and  notwithstanding  the  vetoes 
of  a  sound  Jeffersonian  Democrat  in  the  gov- 
ernor's office,  the  state's  money  and  credit  were 
used  to  promote  the  enterprise.  At  the  same 
time,  stirred  up  by  the  report  of  an  accomplished 
state  geologist,  the  people  began  at  last  to 
take  into  serious  consideration  the  great  mineral 
resources  which  Sir  Charles  Lyell  had  noted  a 
decade  or  two  earlier.  A  young  civil  engineer 
was  commissioned  to  survey  a  railroad  through 
what  the  legislature  called  "  the  mineral  region," 
meaning  the  region  of  which  Birmingham  is  now 
the  centre,  but  he  declared  that  he  had  no  idea 
where  the  mineral  region  was.  The  governor  who 
signed  his  commission  could  not  tell  him.  Never- 
theless, the  work  was  done,  and  it  is  interesting 


96  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

to  know  that  in  Alabama  and  other  Southern 
states  those  developments  which  have  come 
about  in  our  own  day  were  at  least  planned 
nearly  fifty  years  ago.  Whether  t;he  plans  could 
ever  have  been  carried  out  with  slave  labor,  or 
whether  white  labor  could  have  been  induced  to 
undertake  them,  is  one  of  the  questions  which  the 
Civil  War  left  unsettled.  However  one  may  be 
inclined  to  answer  it,  they  never  were  carried  out, 
the  schemes  and  devices  of  the  Southern  leaders 
to  add  other  industries  to  agriculture  without  get- 
ting rid  of  slavery  never  brought  any  important 
results,  and  the  civilization  of  the  Cotton  states  con- 
tinued to  be  threatened  from  within  by  the  same 
inevitable  decay  which  had  come  upon  Virginia 
and  the  Carolinas.  That  threat,  the  conscious- 
ness of  that  danger,  the  restlessness  of  strong 
men  under  it,  conspiring  with  the  abolitionist 
threat  from  without,  had  its  first  important  result 
in  the  rise  of  a  party  in  the  lower  South  parallel  and 
comparable  to  the  abolitionist  party  of  the  East. 

I  have  said  of  the  abolition  movement  that  so 
far  as  its  effects  on  Northern  public  opinion  are 
concerned,  it  was  an  admirable  thing,  an  indispen- 
sable thing.  It  was  comparable  to  the  first  begin- 
nings of  the  Protestant  revolt  against  papal  abuses, 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  97 

to  the  martyrdoms  in  which  the  great  Puritan  revolt 
in  England  had  its  rise,  to  the  work  of  Rousseau 
and  the  encyclopedists  in  France.  The  strange, 
hard,  fervid  life  of  New  England,  though  it  brought 
forth  our  most  notable  literature,  our  chief  educa- 
tional movements,  and  a  great  part  of  our  wealth, 
found  its  Tightest  outburst  and  culmination  in 
that  unreasoning,  unpractical,  magnificent  assault 
upon  the  very  pillars  of  the  social  order,  en- 
dangering the  whole  if  only  it  might  strike  the 
wrong  so  long  enthroned  in  high  places.  The 
sense  of  human  brotherhood  which  Puritanism 
had  formerly  repressed,  or  turned  into  religious 
fervor ;  the  zeal  of  a  priesthood  stripped  of  its  old 
authority  and  no  longer  confident  of  the  divine 
source  of  its  mission ;  the  sudden  impulse  of 
philanthropy  in  men  and  women  whose  own  lives 
had  in  them  nothing  to  explain  how  a  slave  could 
bear  his  servitude  or  a  master  could  be  other 
than  cruel ;  the  broodings  of  long  winter  evenings 
over  the  outer  world  which  New  England  had 
not  yet  brought  to  her  own  doors ;  the  village 
schoolmarm's  hidden  passion  of  protest  ;  the  free- 
thinker's clear-eyed  insight  into  the  hollowness  of 
every  appeal  to  the  past  for  authority  to  enthrall 
the  present;  the  spirit  of  Brook  Farm  and  the 


98  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

genius  of  the  town  meeting :  —  all  these  New 
England  ideals  and  impulses  went  into  that 
movement,  and  the  movement  itself  was  the  be- 
ginning of  that  wider  popular  movement  which 
finally  freed  the  North  from  the  rule  of  the  planter. 
It  was  the  essence  of  New  England's  aspiration, 
the  last  distinctive  expression  of  New  England 
character. 

Few  historians  have  yet  found  time  to  fol- 
low the  parallel  movement  to  the  southward. 
The  Southern  leaders  in  Washington  forced 
gag  rules  through  Congress  to  keep  out  aboli- 
tionist petitions.  They  suborned  the  postal  ser- 
vice to  their  ends  and  got  abolitionist  literature 
debarred  from  the  mails.  They  invaded  the  North 
and  dragged  slaves  back  to  their  plantations. 
They  browbeat  liberty  men  in  Congress.  They 
hanged  John  Brown.  Whenever  they  failed  to 
crush  out  abolitionism,  it  was  because  there  was 
in  the  nature  of  things  no  way  to  reach  it,  not 
because  Northern  public  men  kept  them  from 
having  their  will  upon  it.  But  the  Southern 
leaders  who  had  gained  and  meant  to  keep  the 
ascendency  at  Washington  were  not  so  successful 
in  dealing  with  the  discontent  at  home.  The 
secessionist  movement  in  the  Cotton  states  began 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  99 

as  early  as  the  abolitionist  movement  in  New  • 
England,  and  it  won  in  the  end  a  far  clearer 
popular  victory.  Just  as  abolitionism,  although 
aimed  at  the  South,  was  most  dangerous  immedi- 
ately to  the  compromise  men  of  the  North,  so  the 
secession  movement,  aimed  at  the  North,  was 
from  the  first  a  struggle  with  the  moderate  men 
and  the  Union  sentiment  of  the  South.  The  abo- 
litionists were  willing  to  endanger  the  Union  in 
order  to  attack  slavery  and  the  plantation  sys- 
tem ;  the  secessionists  were  willing  to  destroy  the 
Union  in  order  to  defend  them.  Union  men, 
North  and  South,  drew  together  when,  in  the 
struggle  over  the  territory  acquired  from  Mexico, 
all  the  antagonisms  were  at  once  revealed  :  when 
the  industrial  system  of  the  North  claimed  the  new 
lands  because  it  had  proved  itself  the  better  system, 
while  the  plantation  system  demanded  them  because 
it  must  spread,  and  because  Southern  blood  had 
won  them  ;  when  two  contrary  theories  of  the  na- 
tional government  were  set  forth  to  guide  Congress 
and  the  courts  in  dealing  with  the  crisis  ;  when  the 
abolitionists  cried  out  against  the  Constitution  as 
a  covenant  with  sin,  and  the  fire-eaters  heaped 
scornful  epithets  upon  Clay  and  all  other  devisers 
of  makeshifts  and  patchers-up  of  compromises. 


100  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

We  all  know  who  the  leaders  of  the  compromise 
movement  were ;  we  all  know  who  the  leaders  of 
the  popular  movement  against  compromise  in  the 
North  were ;  few  of  us  can  now  recall  even  the 
names  of  the  men  who  led  the  movement  against 
compromise  in  the  South.  The  peacemakers 
and  the  abolitionists  have  their  place  in  history 
fixed  ;  the  fire-eaters  are  forgotten. 

Yet  the  pen  of  Garrison  and  the  voice  of 
Phillips  had  their  counterparts  in  the  Cotton 
states.  William  Gilmore  Sims,  Beverly  Tucker, 
and  a  host  of  others,  defended  slavery  in  the 
press.  Calhoun,  on  the  brink  of  the  grave,  mut- 
tered fearful  prophecies  of  coming  disaster. 
When  he  passed  from  the  scene,  Davis  and 
Toombs  and  Quitman  took  up  the  cause.  But 
of  all  these  voices  of  the  South,  the  clearest 
and  the  fiercest  came  from  the  heart  of  the  Cotton 
Empire,  from  Alabama,  from  William  L.  Yancey. 
Neglected  by  historians,  his  was  yet  a  leading  r61e 
in  the  action  behind  the  scenes :  for  he  spoke, 
not  to  legislatures  nor  to  Congress,  but  to  the 
people  themselves.  If  Wendell  Phillips  was  the 
orator  of  abolition,  if  Clay  was  the  orator  of 
compromise,  Yancey  was  the  orator  of  secession. 
More  clearly,  more  eloquently,  and  more  effec- 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  IOI 

tively  than  any  other,  he  urged  that  the  Cotton 
states  could  not  compromise,  for  compromise  was 
surrender.  Slavery  must  have  room  or  perish. 
The  South  must  have  what  it  felt  to  be  its  right, 
or  lose  its  honor. 

Garrison  and  Phillips  never  had  their  way.  The 
territorial  controversy  was  compromised  in  1850 
by  a  plan  of  Clay's  that  proposed  to  leave  the 
settlement  of  the  question  to  the  people  of  the 
territories  themselves  when  they  should  be  ready  to 
come  into  the  Union.  A  more  effective  fugitive- 
slave  law  was  passed.  Neither  New  England  nor 
any  other  part  of  the  country  acted  on  the  theory 
that  it  was  right  to  disregard  the  claims  of  the 
Union  itself  because  the  Union  was  a  compromise 
with  slavery.  The  idea  that  the  destruction  of 
slavery  was  more  important  than  the  preservation 
of  the  Union  was  never  accepted  by  any  large  num- 
ber of  men.  The  actual  process  by  which  slavery 
was  in  the  end  overthrown  was  in  fact  quite  for- 
eign to  the  purposes  of  the  avowed  abolitionists. 
They  contributed  to  the  result  only  by  arousing 
the  conscience  of  the  North,  not  by  devising  any 
plan  of  action  and  getting  the  North  to  adopt  it. 

The  extreme  men  in  the  South  were  also 
defeated,  twice  defeated.  They  were  beaten  in 


102  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

1848,  when  they  tried  to  commit  one  of  the  great 
parties  —  the  Democratic  —  to  the  position  that 
Congress  must  guarantee  to  every  slaveholder 
the  right  to  go  into  the  new  territories  with  his 
property,  without  regard  to  the  action  of  any  terri- 
torial legislature.  They  were  beaten  again  when, 
after  Congress  had  passed  Clay's  compromise 
measures,  they  appealed  to  the  people  of  the 
Cotton  states  to  resist.  The  people  of  the  Cotton 
states,  like  the  rest  of  the  country,  indorsed  the 
compromise,  and  waited  to  see  how  it  would  work. 
The  majority  of  them  seemed  to  think  that  the 
plantation  and  the  slave  were  still  safe  in  the 
Union ;  or  else,  loving  the  Union,  they  were  will- 
ing to  risk  something  in  order  that  they  might 
continue  to  live  in  it. 

And  then,  for  a  moment,  it  began  to  look  as  if 
they  were  really  going  to  have  all  they  could  ask 
inside  the  Union,  as  if  the  plantation  and  the 
slave  were  going  to  dominate  more  clearly  than 
ever  in  the  councils  of  the  Republic.  I  mean,  of 
course,  when  Douglas,  a  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dency, a  Northern  man  with  Southern  views, 
persuaded  Congress  in  1854  to  throw  open  to 
slavery,  in  the  same  way  that  the  Mexican  cession 
was  open  to  slavery,  a  region  which  had  been 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  1 03 

given  over  to  free  labor  since  the  compromise  of 
1820.  I  have  spoken  of  the  Mexican  cession  as 
the  crowning  triumph  of  the  public  men  of  the 
Cotton  states,  and  so  it  was.  The  opening  of 
Kansas  to  slavery  in  1854  was,  indeed,  a  greater 
defeat  for  the  antislavery  men,  a  more  humiliating 
indignity  to  the  opponents  of  slavery,  than  any- 
thing they  had  yet  endured.  But  it  can  hardly 
be  set  down  as  the  achievement  of  Southern  men. 
Many  moderate  slave-owners  were  in  fact  surprised 
at  it.  More  clearly  than  almost  any  other  impor- 
tant event  in  our  history,  it  was  the  work  of  one 
man  —  Douglas.  Although  it  came  to  them  as  a 
consequence  of  their  ascendency,  the  slave-owners 
accepted  it  as  a  gift,  and  not  as  a  reward  of  their 
own  labors.  Yancey,  however,  found  very  few  to 
agree  with  him  when  he  contended  that  even  the 
gift  was  unacceptable  because  it  seemed  to  come 
with  a  reservation  in  favor  of  the  ultimate  right 
of  the  people  who  might  occupy  the  new  terri- 
tories to  say  for  themselves  whether  they  would 
have  slavery  or  not. 

But  the  act  of  Douglas  was  in  reality  fraught 
with  more  immediate  danger  to  slavery  than  the 
events  of  1848  and  1850.  The  Mexican  War  and 
the  triumph  therein  of  cotton  and  slavery  had 


104  THE  LOWER   SOUTH 

angered  tens  of  thousands  of  Northern  men ;  the 
Kansas  bill  angered  hundreds  of  thousands.  A 
year  or  two  later,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  coun- 
try ranged  itself  squarely  on  the  side  of  the 
South ;  but  a  mightier  force  than  Congress,  or 
courts,  or  armies,  was  against  it  —  the  force  of 
public  opinion.  Garrison  and  Phillips  had  done 
their  work  ;  Clay  had  done  his  ;  Douglas,  his. 
Now  at  last  the  slumbering  giant  was  aroused. 

Blindly  feeling  about  for  a  minister  who  should 
give  them  both  their  desires,  the  preservation  of 
the  Union  and  the  destruction  of  slavery,  the 
people  of  the  North  found  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
the  end  of  dispute  and  compromise  was  near. 
No  longer  confined  to  such  methods  of  opposi- 
tion as  underground  railways  and  personal  liberty 
bills,  which  brought  them  in  conflict  with  the  law, 
and  clearly  violated  that  understanding  between 
the  two  sections,  —  morally  binding  on  many  men, 
whether  or  not  it  was  regarded  as  a  compact, — 
which  was  set  forth  in  the  Constitution  itself, 
the  antislavery  sentiment  of  the  North  had  at 
last  a  definite  and  constitutional  plan  of  action. 
Free  labor  poured  into  Kansas,  and  the  weaker 
system  went  to  the  wall  before  the  stronger. 
The  Republican  party  was  formed,  not  to  attack 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  105 

slavery  in  the  states  where  it  already  existed,  but 
to  strangle  it  by  keeping  it  out  of  the  territories. 
But  if  Northern  men  thought  that  the  men  of 
the  lower  South  were  going  to  give  up  the  initia- 
tive, and  stand  merely  on  the  defensive,  after 
thirty  years  of  power  and  conquest,  they  had 
profited  little  by  their  abundant  opportunity  to 
study  the  temper  of  their  rulers.  In  the  accounts 
of  this  period  by  Southern  writers,  the  South  is 
generally  represented  as  standing  entirely  on  the 
defensive,  and  there  is  a  sense  in  which  that  is 
true.  As  I  have  tried  to  make  plain,  they  could 
not  defend  their  system  without  controlling  the 
government.  Their  attitude  was  like  Sir  Anthony 
Absolute's  in  "  The  Rivals  "  :  "  You  know  I  am 
compliance  itself  —  when  I  am  not  thwarted;  no 
one  more  easily  led  —  when  I  have  my  own  way." 
They  were  on  the  defensive  as  Lee  was  on  the 
defensive  when  he  protected  Richmond  by  invad- 
ing Pennsylvania.  For  my  own  part,  I  think 
better  of  those  men  because,  masters  so  long, 
they  were  masterful  to  the  last.  One  can  rejoice 
when  a  strong  man,  taking  a  high  and  proud 
course,  is  reclaimed  and  humbled  by  the  sympathy 
and  tenderness  of  his  friends.  But  the  same  man, 
if  he  be  merely  upbraided  and  threatened  with 


IO6  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

punishment,  and  not  even  beaten  to  his  knees, 
and  if  he  yet  fall  a-whimpering,  and  promise  to 
mend  his  ways  because  he  must,  fails  to  command 
even  our  aspect.  On  the  contrary,  none  of  us  but 
in  his  secret  soul  will  admire  him  more  if  he  go 
on  with  the  strong  hand,  if  he  run  his  course  out, 
if  he  fight  his  fight  to  a  finish,  and  then  turn  his 
face  to  the  wall  and  die,  and  give  no  sign. 

Such  was,  in  fact,  the  course  which  the  Southern 
leaders  took  after  the  failure  of  the  Kansas-Ne- 
braska scheme  and  the  rise  of  the  Republican 
party.  At  the  time  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill 
passed,  Yancey  and  the  secessionists  were  reduced 
to  a  handful.  Several  Southern  states  had  been 
carried  by  the  Union  men  on  platforms  declaring 
not  merely  that  there  was  no  occasion  to  secede, 
but  that  there  was  no  right  in  a  state  to  secede 
on  any  occasion.  That  was  in  the  platform  of 
the  Union  men  in  Alabama  in  1851.  But  when 
it  grew  clearer  and  clearer  that  slave  labor  could 
not  compete  on  equal  terms  with  free  labor,  and 
that  unless  something  further  were  done  Kansas 
and  the  Middle  West,  like  California,  were  sure  to 
come  into  the  Union  as  free  states,  the  Southern 
extremists  grew  stronger  and  stronger.  Seizing 
upon  the  Southern  wing  of  the  Democratic  party, 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  1 07 

they  committed  it  to  the  extreme  platform  which 
the  whole  party  had  rejected  in  1848.  Congress 
must  not  only  give  slave  labor  a  free  chance  in 
the  territories,  it  must  protect  it  there  against  the 
acts  of  territorial  legislatures  and  any  other  expres- 
sion of  the  settlers'  desire  to  get  rid  of  it. 

The  theory  of  secession  became  at  once  the 
uppermost  topic  of  discussion  in  every  one  of  the 
Cotton  states.  It  was  discussed  in  conventions,  in 
joint  debates,  on  the  streets  of  the  country  towns, 
at  every  dinner-table.  Up  to  1850,  probably  not 
one  man  in  a  hundred  anywhere  in  the  Union 
outside  of  South  Carolina  really  knew  whether 
he  believed  in  the  right  of  secession  or  not,  any 
more  than  we  ourselves,  before  the  battle  of 
Manila,  knew  whether  we  believed  in  imperialism 
or  not.  The  question  had  not  been  practical  any- 
where but  in  South  Carolina  since  the  Hartford 
Convention  of  1814.  But  by  1860,  a  majority  of 
the  people  of  the  lower  South  had  made  up  their 
minds  that  they  did  believe  in  the  right,  and  a  ma- 
jority, though  not  a  great  majority,  were  ready  to 
exercise  it  if  they  could  not  get  what  they  held  to 
be  their  rights  in  the  territories  and  if  they  could  not 
force  Northern  communities  to  live  up  to  the  letter 
of  the  bond  and  give  back  their  fugitive  slaves. 


108  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

The  men  of  the  lower  South  formulated  their 
demands  at  the  Democratic  National  Convention 
at  Charleston,  and  when  the  Northern  majority 
declined  by  a  few  votes  to  yield  them  all  they 
asked,  they  arose  and  followed  Yancey,  their 
spokesman,  out  of  the  hall  and  out  of  the  party. 
Meeting  again  at  Baltimore,  they  defiantly  named 
a  Southern  man  on  the  extreme  Southern  platform, 
and  the  entire  lower  South  cast  its  votes  for  him. 
Lincoln,  elected  but  not  yet  in  office,  made  haste 
to  let  them  know  that  he  would  never  interfere 
with  slavery  and  the  plantation  system  in  the 
states  where  they  already  existed.  But  they  had 
learned  too  well  the  real  hope  in  his  mind,  they 
believed  too  thoroughly  in  his  own  saying  that  a 
house  divided  against  itself  could  not  stand.  One 
by  one,  the  states  of  the  lower  South  held  their 
solemn  conventions.  The  Union  men  in  every 
one  of  them  made  a  brave  last  stand  with  their 
backs  to  the  wall.  The  congressmen  at  Wash- 
ington, the  men  who  for  so  many  years,  with 
a  bare  equality  in  one  house,  a  minority  in  the 
other,  had  initiated,  passed,  or  prevented  legisla- 
tion, haughtily  retired  from  their  places  and 
hastened  to  Montgomery.  So  perfect  was  the 
unanimity  and  solidarity  of  the  people  behind 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  109 

them,  after  the  last  fight  for  the  Union  had  been 
lost,  that  within  less  than  a  hundred  days  from 
the  election  which  marked  the  end  of  their  ascen- 
dency at  Washington  they  were  seated  in  the 
provisional  congress  of  a  new  government,  dividing 
among  themselves  its  cabinet  portfolios,  choosing 
a  president  from  their  number,  and  sending  envoys 
to  Washington,  to  England,  to  Europe.  Prohibit- 
ing the  foreign  slave  trade,  they  thereby  sum- 
moned Virginia  to  choose  between  the  Union  her 
great  sons  had  builded  and  the  civilization  which 
had  its  birth  on  her  shores.  That  summons  fail- 
ing, they  fired  on  Sumter,  and  the  cannonade  at 
last  awoke  the  mother  of  States  and  forced  her 
to  make  her  choice  at  once. 

Our  history  has  many  dramatic  episodes  in 
which  men  and  women  play  the  parts.  Here, 
however,  was  the  supremely  dramatic  moment  in 
the  development  of  the  silent  forces  on  the  great 
stage  where  states,  not  men,  are  the  players. 
When  Virginia  roused  herself  from  her  trance  of 
forty  years,  she  awoke  to  such  a  conflict  of  high 
motives  and  passionate  impulses,  to  be  beat  upon 
by  such  stormy  appeals,  to  be  torn  with  such 
contrary  aspirations,  as  no  tragedy  queen  on  any 
jnimic  stage  ever  was  beset  with.  The  imperial 


IIO  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

commonwealth  had  fallen  on  that  sleep  weakened 
with  the  pain  of  bearing  states,  and  wearied  out 
with  the  toil  of  setting  in  order  the  spacious 
mansion  which  should  shelter  them.  Now,  the 
instinct  of  motherhood  called  her  one  way,  the 
safety  of  the  household  another.  If  she  turned 
to  Massachusetts,  once  her  steadfast  ally,  no 
Adams  or  Hancock  answered  her.  No  Henry, 
no  Marshall,  no  grave-eyed  Washington  was  there 
to  step  between  her  and  her  fighting  soul.  She 
took  hurried  counsel,  and  pleaded  for  time,  and 
muttered  somewhat  of  old  sacrifices  made,  old 
victories  won.  Her  mountain  parts  chose  liberty 
and  the  new  order,  her  comfortable  lowlands  clung 
to  the  old.  While  she  still  hesitated,  and  only 
half  consented,  her  unruly  children  were  already 
compassing  her  about  with  armies,  ranging  their 
battle  line  along  her  northern  border,  thrusting 
the  sword  into  her  reluctant  hand,  pressing  an 
unsought  crown  upon  her  brow.  Even  Massa- 
chusetts, mother  of  the  hardier  brood,  may  not 
judge  her  harshly  if  at  last  her  motherhood 
yielded  to  that  insistent  clamor  about  her  knees. 
The  cause  Virginia  thus  took  up  was  no  longer 
her  own.  The  only  trophies  she  could  win  were 
monuments.  And  yet,  we  may  not  altogether  con- 


THE  LOWER  SOUTH  III 

demn  the  cause,  or  the  true  leaders  in  it,  or  the 
civilization  they  fought  for.  In  attempting  so 
broad  a  view  of  it  and  them,  I  have  not  been 
unaware  of  the  dangers  inseparable  from  such  a 
method.  Inaccuracy,  which  minute  inquiries 
have  to  risk,  is  less  harmful  than  folly,  unfairness, 
unwisdom,  against  which  one  who  attempts  large 
views  must  guard.  But  the  more  liberal  method, 
if  it  endanger  us  of  greater  error,  may  also  win 
us  more  enlightenment  than  the  other.  It  is  only 
by  drawing  a  wide  circle  that  we  can  see  what 
that  lost  cause  really  was.  It  was  not  the  cause 
merely  of  a  single  institution  or  of  a  particular 
theory  of  government.  The  power  which  ruled 
the  Union  forty  years  and  then  tore  it  asunder 
was  based  on  history,  it  was  rooted  in  human 
nature,  it  was  buttressed  by  ancient  law  and 
usage.  It  caught  hold  of  our  new  continent,  and 
made  headway  against  our  new  ideas,  because 
it  found  certain  material  conditions  peculiarly 
adapted  to  sustain  it.  Good  men  and  bad  men 
were  its  instruments,  but  it  did  not  radically 
change  the  quality  either  of  the  men  whom  it 
lifted  up  or  of  the  men  whom  it  bowed  down. 

No  American  nowadays  needs   to  be  told  how 
dangerous  to  our  American  experiment  that   old 


112  THE  LOWER  SOUTH 

Southern  civilization  was.  Nevertheless,  he  is 
but  half  an  American  who  can  find  no  charm  in  it. 
The  only  apology  for  it  is  the  men  it  bred,  and 
how  strong  they  were  I  have  tried  to  indicate. 
But  the  best  test  of  them  came  at  the  end,  when 
they  fought  a  losing  fight  as  well  as  they  ever 
fought  a  winning  one ;  when  they  put  into  the 
field  the  very  best  army  their  race  ever  marshalled 
in  any  cause,  on  any  continent ;  when  Virginia, 
from  her  marvellous  county  of  Westmoreland, 
brought  forth  and  set  at  its  head  yet  another 
captain,  greater  than  any  Marlborough  or  Wel- 
lington of  them  all.  If  we  content  ourselves  with 
calling  that  army  a  band  of  rebels,  and  Lee  a 
traitor,  we  are  in  danger  of  glorifying  rebellion  ; 
we  make  "traitor"  meaningless.  If  they  broke 
faith  with  the  new  order,  it  was  to  keep  faith  with 
the  old.  For  it  was  their  whole  past,  it  was  the 
whole  past  of  the  race,  that  surged  up  the  Gettys- 
burg heights,  —  and  the  whole  future  stood  embat- 
tled to  withstand  the  shock.  It  is  enough  if  such 
as  come  up  out  of  the  desert  —  out  of  the  vineyard 
turned  into  a  desert,  and  sown  with  the  dragon's 
teeth  —  if  even  they  can  rejoice  that  then,  as 
always,  the  angels  of  the  future  were  stronger 
than  the  angels  of  the  past. 


II.    THE   ORATOR   OF   SECESSION 


II 

THE   ORATOR  OF   SECESSION 

A  STUDY  OF  AN  AGITATOR 

IN  the  study  of  American  history,  we  seem  to 
have  attained  a  sufficient  remoteness  from  the  great 
antislavery  agitators  to  justify  confidence  in  the 
estimates  of  them  and  their  work  which  historians 
like  Mr.  Rhodes  and  Mr.  Schouler  have  been  mak- 
ing for  us.  In  these  fresh  and  careful  accounts 
of  the  great  sectional  controversy,  Garrison  and 
Phillips  take  their  place  close  alongside  the  men 
of  action  who  carried  on  the  fight  in  Congress,  in 
the  .White  House,  and  on  the  battlefield.  It  is, 
therefore,  somewhat  surprising  that  the  proslavery 
agitators  are  generally  neglected  by  the  historians 
of  their  times.  The  congressional  side  of  the 
proslavery  fight  has  been  adequately  portrayed, 
and  some  attention  has  been  given  to  the  govern- 
ors and  other  officials  in  the  South  who  were 
active  champions  of  the  doomed  institution.  But 
of  the  proslavery  agitators,  properly  so  called, 
we  know  very  little.  Even  Mr.  Rhodes,  whose 

"5 


Il6  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

account  of  Southern  society  exhibits  so  conscien- 
tious a  desire  to  understand  the  springs  of  the 
secession  movement,  has  told  us  far  less  than 
we  should  like  to  know  of  them,  and  particularly 
of  the  man  who  was  foremost  in  that  work. 

The  fact  is  not  explained  by  any  lack  of  striking 
and  picturesque  features  in  the  man's  career,  for 
it  was  in  many  ways  extraordinary ;  nor  can  it  be 
attributed  to  the  failure  of  his  enterprise,  for 
he  and  his  fellows  accomplished  their  immediate 
purpose.  They  may  at  least  share  equally  with 
Garrison  and  Phillips  and  their  associates  in  the 
responsibility  for  precipitating  the  conflict  at  one 
time  instead  of  another,  and  for  the  lines  on 
which  the  issue  was  finally  joined.  Yet  for 
chapters  on  the  work  of  the  antislavery  agi- 
_tators— work  that  began  and  ended  with  agita- 
tion  —  one  finds  scarcely  a  line  devoted  to  the 
life-work  of  William  Lowndes  Yancey.  An  in- 
dustrious biographer 1  has  indeed  published  a  mass 
of  interesting  facts  about  his  life  and  times,  but 
the  book,  though  favorably  known  to  investigators, 
has  made  little  headway  toward  reestablishing  his 
fame.  His  very  name,  which  injthe  later  fifties 
was  a  rallying  cry  to  thejJefenders  of  slavery,  and 

1  John  Witherspoon  Du  Bose. 


THE    ORATOR    OF  SECESSION  1  17 

to  its  assailants  an  execration,  is  known  to  few 
who  cannot  go  back  in  memory  to  those  terrible 
years.  Thousands  of  youth,  fresh  from  the  study 
of  their  country's  history  even  in  our  best  col- 
leges, would  be  astounded,  no  doubt,  to  hear  a 
claim  advanced  for  him,  as  it  might  be,  and  quite 
seriously,  to  a  place  among  the  half-dozen  men 


who  have  had  most  to  do^vjth_shaping; 
Jhistory  i"  this  c,?ni"1iry  A  pause  over  his  grave 
should  not  prove  useless  to  those  who  are  attempt- 
ing a  philosophical  treatment  of  the  period  to 
which  he  belongs. 

/  He  was  of  good  Virginian  ancestry,  but  his 
father,  Benjamin  Cudworth  Yancey,  lived  in 
South  Carolina,  and  was  numbered  with  Lowndes, 
Cheves,  Calhoun,  and  Wilds,  in  the  so-called 
"  legal  galaxy  "  of  the  Palmetto  State.  The  father 
died  in  1817,  when  the  son  was  three  years  old, 
and  left  but  a  small  fortune  ;  the  boy's  education 
was  therefore  limited  to  a  single  year  at  Williams 
College.  After  that,  he  studied  law  at  Green- 
ville, South  Carolina,  and  at  twenty  he  was  a  prac- 
titioner at  the  bar,  the  editor  of  a  Unionist  paper, 
and  an  anti-nullification  orator.  At  twenty-one, 
he  married  a  wealthy  lady  and  became  a  planter. 
A  year  later,  he  went  with  his  slaves  to  Alabama 


Il8  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

i 

;ind  established  himself  at  Oakland,  a  plantation 
n  the  heart  of  the  Black  Belt,/near  Cahawba,  the 
/ 
first  capital  of  the  young  commonwealth,  —  a  city 

of  sudden  Inrtji  and  swift  decay,  now  quite  van- 
ished from  the  earth. 

/  Here  he  lived  the  quiet  life  of  a  cotton 
planter  until  an  irretrievable  disaster,  the  acci- 
dental poisoning  of  his  slaves,  drove  him  back 
into  law  and  journalism ;  and  journalism  and  the 
law  led  him  into  politics.  Meanwhile,  the  head- 
ship of  a  slave  establishment  had  so  strengthened 
the  ties  which  bound  him  to  his  class  and  his 
section  that  no  trace  of  Unionism  was  left  in 
his  mind  when  he  entered  the  campaign  of  1840 
as  a  Van  Buren  man.  Alabama  was  Democratic, 
but  the  Whigs  were  making  a  wonderful  canvass. 
The  demand  for  state  rights  oratory  was  great,  and 
it  was  as  a  state  rights  Democrat  of  the  strictest 
sect  that  Yancey  first  appeared,  in  the  hard-cider 
year,  before  Alabama  audiences.  His  success  was 
such  that  for  twenty  years  thereafter  his  sway  over 
the  people  of  the  state  was  comparable  to  nothing 
that  we  of  a  cooler-headed  generation  have  ever 
seen.  Chief  Justice  Stone,  a  jurist  not  unknown 
to  lawyers  of  the  present  day,  once  said :  "  I 
first  heard  Mr.  Yancey  in  1840.  I  thought  then, 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  119 

and  I  yet  think,  he  was  the  greatest  orator  I  ever 
heard." 

He  rose  rapidly  to  power.  At  twenty-seven,  he 
was  in  the  lower  house  of  the  legislature.  At 
twenty-nine,  he  was  a  state  senator.  At  thirty, 
a  by-election  sent  him  to  Congress.  His  reputa- 
tion as  an  orator  had  preceded  him,  and  his  first 
/speech  at  Washington  extended  it  widely,  while 
the  immediate  consequences  of  the  speech  made 
him  for  a  time  a  national  celebrity.  Clingman, 
of  North  Carolina,  had  become  a  target  for  South- 
ern invective  when  he  opposed  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  the  principal  measure  under  debate  dur- 
ing the  winter  of  1844-45.  To  Yancey,  though 
a  new  member,  his  fellows  granted  the  distin- 
guished privilege  of  replying  for  them  all ;  and  if 
he  excelled  in  one  sort  of  oratory  more  than 
another  it  was  in  impassioned  invective.  His 
speech  made  a  pronounced  impression  on  the 
House  and  the  country,  and  Clingman,  stung  to 
the  quick,  demanded  an  explanation  of  certain 
personal  allusions.  Yancey  haughtily  declined 
to  explain.  Clingman  then  asked  for  "the  satis- 
faction usual  among  gentlemen "  ;  and  with  this 
demand  his  opponent,  who  had  killed  his  man  in 
an  earlier  affair,  instantly  complied. 


I2O  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

The  meeting  was  bloodless,  and  the  opponents 
dueling  failed  entirely  in  their  efforts  to  make 
m  example  of  the  principals.  Preston  King's 
resolution  for  an  investigation  was  beaten  in  the 
House,  and  the  legislature  of  Alabama  passed, 
over  the  governor's  veto,  an  act  relieving  Yancey 
of  the  political  disabilities  which,  under  the  laws  of 
^he  state,  he  had  incurred.  To  the  Alabama  Bap- 
tist, a  religious  paper  which  severely  censured  his 
course,  Yancey  wrote  :  "  The  laws  of  God,  the  laws 
of  my  own  state,  the  solemn  obligations  due  'that 
young  wife,  the  mother  of  my  children,'  to  whom 
you  so  feelingly  and  chastely  allude,  were  all  con- 
sidered ;  but  all  yielded,  as  they  have  ever  done 
from  the  earliest  times  to  the  present,  to  those 
laws  which  public  opinion  has  framed,  and  which 
no  one,  however  exalted  his  station,  violates  with 
impunity."  It  was  a  poor  defence,  but  Alexander 
Hamilton's  was  little  better. 

Unopposed  by  the  Whigs,  Yancey  was  returned 

for  the  term  beginning  in  1845,  and  his  reputation 

was  much    strengthened  by  his  speeches  during 

the  first  session.     Apparently,  he  had  every  reason 

•  to  look  forward  to  a  brilliant  career  in  public  life. 

\  But  at  the  end  of  the  session  he  resigned  his  seat, 

1  formed  a  partnership  with  a  distinguished  lawyer 


THE    ORATOR    OF  SECESSION  121 

••  of  Montgomery,  and  stated  with  the  utmost  clear- 

i 

ness   his   reasons  for   retiring.     He  never  again 

held  office  under  the  government  of  the  United 

States.     I  have  set  down  the  facts  of  his  career 

I   up  to   this   point   as   briefly  as   I  could,  for  the 

1  reason  that  his  true  life-work  began  with  his  with- 

1  drawal  from  Congress. 

The  address  to   his   constituents  in  which   he 
announced  his  retirement  was  in  the  main  a  bitter 

arraignment    of    the)  Northern   Democrats.      He 

I 

charged  them  with  subserviency  to  sectional  in- 
terests antagonistic  to  the  welfare  of  the  South, 
and  with  infidelity  to  the  party's  historical  prin- 
ciples. "If  principle,"  he  declared,  "is  dearer 

tata- 

than  mere  party  association,  v/e  will  never  again 
meet  in  common  Democratic  convention  a  large 
body  of  men  who  have  vigorously  opposed  us  on 
principle."  The  scorn  jDjL.cpmpromise  .was- -the 
key-note  of  his  addressj i^resistance Jto. cpjnpromjse 
was  the  sum  total  of  the  endeavor  to  which_he. 
thus  committed  "Kimselfr"  TRe  recreant  party 
rivust~Be  brought  back  to  the  principles  of  strict 
construction  or  no  longer  leaned  upon  as  the  bul- 
wark of  Southern  rights.  The  South  must  cease 
to  rely  on  party,  and  insist,  regardless  of  party 
platforms  and  party  interests,  upon  all  it  had  a 


122  THE    ORATOR    OF  SECESSION 

right   to   claim   under  the   "compact   of   union." 

ti*** 

••  The  ultimate  remedy  for  Northern  aggression  he 
f  did  not  yet  name;  but  when  occasion  arose,  in 
the  controversy  over  the  territory  acquired  from 
Mexico,  he  named  it  promptly  and  clearly.  It 
was  not  nullification,  or  interposition,  or  any  other 
form  of  resistance  inside  the  Union ;  it  was  seces- 
sion from  the  Union.  To  the  fight  against  compro- 
mise Yancey  gave  the  remainder  of  his  life.  To 
understand  how  he  fought  and  why  he  won,  it  is 
necessary  to  have  some  knowledge  of  the  people 
among  whom  he  lived  and  the  means  of  agitation 
that  were  available. 


Politically,  the  people  of  the  Cotton  states  were 
divided  into  three  parties.  There  were,  indeed, 
few  who  did  not  call  themselves  either  Whigs  or 
Democrats ;  but  the  extreme  state  rights  men, 
though  they  usually  cooperated  with  the  Demo- 
crats, repeatedly  asserted  themselves  in  such  a 
way  as  to  present  the  aspect  of  a  third  party. 
Although  a  majority  of  the  great  planters  were 
probably  Whigs  in  name,  they  usually  stood  for 
the  interests  of  their  class,  and  in  consequence 
they  frequently  found  themselves  in  closer  accord 
with  the  state  rights  or  "  Southern  Rights  "  Demo- 
crats of  their  own  section  than  with  the  Whigs  of 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  123 

the  North.  On  the  other  hand,  the  bulk  of  the 
Democrats,  small  farmers,  tradesmen,  and  the  like 
were  nowhere  committed,  except  in  South  Caro- 
lina, to  the  extreme  doctrines  of  Calhoun  and 

pother  leaders  in  the  resistance  to  centralization. 
'tj 

There  is  no  good  reason  to  believe   that   either 

nullification  or  secession,  considered  as  a  policy, 
had  a  majority  of  the  party  in  any  state  except 

South  Carolina/   and  in  South  Carolina  the  Cal- 
V.  f 

houn  men  controlled  so  completely  that  the  ordi- 
nary party  divisions  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
prevailed  there  at  all.  ^  It  was  to  the  state  rights 
men,  mingled  as  they  were  with  the  supporters  of 
both  the  great  national  parties,  that  Yancey  turned 
for  help  in  the  task  he  had  undertaken. 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that  the  public  mind 
?  of  the  entire  South  was  in  a  state  altogether 
favorable  to  revolutionary  enterprises.  A  growing 
unrest  was  in  many  ways  apparent.  Industrial 
I  unrest,  due  to  economic  causes,  was  exhibited  in 
!  a  revival  of  the  migratory  impulse.  Early  in  the 
I  fifties,  we  find  Senator  C.  C.  Clay  complaining 
j  bitterly  of  the  abandonment  of  lands  near  his 
j  home  in  the  fertile  valley  of  the  Tennessee.  Olm- 
\  sted's  books  are  full  of  allusions  to  the  westward 
^movement  of  cotton  growers,  even  from  regions  so 


124  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

recently  settled  as  the  valleys  of  the  Alabama  and 
Tombigbee  rivers.  It  was  about  this  time  that 
the  failure  of  the  state  bank-  systems  throughout 
the  South  was  finally  accepted  by  the  legislatures 
and  the  people.  The  political  signs  of  unrest  were 
unmistakable.  In  Yancey's  own  state,  party  lines 
were  drawn  in  so  many  ways  during  the  decade 
from  1845  to  1855  that  the  party  names  are  be- 
wildering. Whigs  and  Democrats,  Bank  men  and 
Anti-Bank  men,  Unionists  and  Southern  Rights 
men,  Know-nothings  and  Anti-Know-nothings 
sought  the  favor  of  the  people.  At  such  a  time, 
tenacity  of  purpose  counted.  In  the  midst  of  hesi- 
tation and  indecision,  Yancey  had  the  immense 
advantage  of  knowing  his  own  mind. 

He  had  another  advantage  in  that  he  lived 
among  a  people  peculiarly  incapable  of  resisting 
any  appeal  that  might  be  made  to  them  as  his 
was,  —  a  people  over*  whom  the  power  of  a  real 
orator  was  incalculable.  An  editor  like  Garrison, 
a  poet  like  Whittier  or  Lowell,  a  novelist  like 
Mrs.  Stowe,  could  hardly  have  swayed  the  planters 
of  Alabama  as  they  swayed  the  people  of  New 
England ;  for  it  must  be  said  of  the  lower  South 
that  its  culture  was  not  of  books.  Mr.  Rhodes, 
guided  by  the  testimony  of  European  travellers, 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  125 

has  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  best  society 
in  the  South  was  finer  than  in  the  North.  "The 
palm,"  he  declares,  "must  be  awarded  to  the  slave- 
holding  section."  But  the  qualities  that  made  the 
Southern  host  so  attractive  to  the  travelled  Eng- 
lishman or  Frenchman  were  not  developed  in  an 
atmosphere  of  free  libraries  or  free  public  schools. 
There  were  really  no  public  libraries  in  the  Cotton 
states,  and  the  public  school  system  did  not  flourish 
in  a  region  so  sparsely  settled  and  so  devoted  to 
agriculture.  The  literary  activity  which  gave  to  the 
world  such  new  names  as  Hawthorne  and  Emerson 
had  in  no  wise  stirred  the  lower  South.  Certain 
newspapers,  like  those  of  Charleston  and  New 
Orleans  and  the  Montgomery  Advertiser,  were 
edited  with  ability,  and  were  by  no  means  unim- 
portant forces  in  politics.  Indeed,  if  one  gives 
due  weight  to  the  fewness  of  cities,  the  influence 
of  the  newspaper  press  seems  to  have  been 
fully  as  great  as  one  could  expect.  But..jt  .  was  _ 
the  spoken  word,  not  the  printed  page,  thajL 
thought,  arouse.4  enthusiasm,  made  Jii&~. 


society   in   which    the   oratftr   roiintf^    fflT 
than  he  did  ir^jjie  Cotton  Kingdom. 

Yet  at  first  blush  it  would  seem  that,  as  com- 


126  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

jpared  with  the  lyceum  orator  of  New  England, 
the  oratorical  agitator  in  the  lower  South  had 
serious  obstacles  to  contend  with.  He  had, 
indeed,  no  such  machinery  as  the  lyceum  to 
bring  him  before  his  audiences.  Moreover,  the 
/  railroads  were  few  and  short ;  there  were  no 
great  cities  and  few  important  towns.  But  he 
did  not  need  the  device  of  the  lyceum  to  get  an 
audience.  Its  place  was  amply  filled  by  the  law 
j  courts,  the  political  meetings  and  conventions, 
1  the  camp-meetings,  and  the  barbecues.  For, 
from  the  nature  of  their  chief  industry,  the 
people  were  unemployed  during  certain  seasons  ; 
and  they  were  all  familiar  with  the  uses  of 
horseflesh.  Time  was  often  heavy  on  their  hands, 
and  everybody  rode  and  drove.  The  cross-roads 
church  stood  often  quite  out  of  sight  of  human 
habitations,  but  its  pews  were  apt  to  be  well 
filled  on  Sunday,  and  the  branches  of  the  trees 
in  front  of  it  were  worn  with  bridles.  The 
court-house,  marking  the  county  seat,  might  have 
no  other  neighbors  than  a  "general"  store  and 
a  wretched  inn ;  but  when  some  famous  lawyer 
rose  to  defend  a  notorious  criminal,  hundreds, 
even  thousands,  followed  with  flashing  or  tearful 
eyes  the  dramatic  action  which  surely  accom- 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  I2/ 

panied  his  appeal.  An  important  convention 
was  not  without  a  "gallery"  because  it  was 
held  in  a  town  of  few  inhabitants  and  the  mean- 
est hotel  accommodations.  As  to  the  barbecues 
and  camp-meetings,  they  were  nothing  less  than 
outpourings  of  the  people.  At  Indian  Springs, 
in  Georgia,  during  the  hard-cider  campaign,  there 
was  given  a  barbecue  to  which  "  the  whole 
people  of  all  Georgia "  were  invited.  It  was 
attended  by  thousands ;  the  orators,  of  whom 
Yancey  was  one,  spoke  by  day  and  by  night ;  and 
it  lasted  a  week. 

/  These,  in  fact,  were  the  true  universities  of 
/  the  lower  South,  —  the  law  courts,  and  the  great 
/religious  and  political  gatherings  /  as  truly  as  a 
grove  was  the  university  of  Athens,  or  a  church, 
with  its  sculpture  and  paintings,  the  Bible  of  a 
mediaeval  town.  The  man  who  wished  to  lead 
or  to  teach  must  be  able  to  speak.  He  could 
not  touch  the  artistic  sense  of  the  people  with 
pictures  or  statues  or  verses  or  plays ;  he  must 
charm  them  with  voice  and  gesture.  There 
could  be  no  hiding  of  the  personality,  no  bury- 
ing of  the  man  in  his  art  or  his  mission.  .  The 
powerful  man  was  above  all  a  person ;  his  power 
was  himself.  How  such  a  great  man  mounted 


128  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

the  rostrum,  with  what  demeanor  he  endured 
an  interruption,  with  what  gesture  he  silenced 
a  murmur,  —  such  things  were  remembered  and 
talked  about  when  his  reasoning  was  perhaps 
forgotten. 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  the  convictions  thus 
implanted  were  less  deep  and  lasting  than  if  they 
had  resulted,  as  in  other  communities,  -  from 
appeals  addressed  more  especially  to  the  intel- 
lect, 't'he  peculiarly  impressionable  character  of 
Southern  audiences  of  that  day,  their  quick 
responsiveness  to  any  plea  that  graced  itself 
with  the  devices  of  the  one  art  they  loved, 
might  very  well  have  led  a  cool-headed  observer 
to  measure  the  outcome  by  the  criterion  of 
Latin-American  civilization.  Instability,  lightness, 
might  with  reason  have  been  attributed  to  such  a 
people.  But  whatever  changes  had  come  over  the 
temper  of  the  English  stock  in  the  Cotton  states, 
it  had  never  lost  its  habit  of  fidelity  to  the  cause 
once  espoused,  its  sternly  practical  way  of  turn- 
ing words  into  deeds.  What  many  a  Northern 
optimist  considered  mere  bluster  in  the  fifties 
took  on  the  horrid  front  of  war  in  the  sixties ; 
what  seemed  credulity  in  the  farmer  audiences 
who  merely  listened  and  shouted  rose  into  the 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  129 

dignity  of  faith  in  the  Petersburg  trenches.  He 
who  cannot  reconcile  excitability  with  strength 
of  purpose  can  never  understand  the  people  to 
whom  Yancey  spoke.1 

Nowhere  were  these  characteristics  of  the 
men  of  the  lower  South  more  strongly  marked 
than  in  Yancey's  own  home  and  the  region  of 
which  it  was  the  centre.  The  country  wagons 
that  always  rilled  the  main  square  of  the  Ala- 
bama capital  brought  every  day  the  two  most 
forcible  illustrations  of  his  contention.  The 
cotton  bale  was  his  object-lesson  when  he  sought 
to  quicken  his  people's  sense  of  the  interests 
which  were  endangered  when  the  manufacturing 
states  controlled  at  Washington.  The  negro  on 
top  of  it  was  a  constant  reminder  of  mastery,  a 
constant  incitement  to  a  heightened  appreciation 
of  the  liberty  that  was  still,  as  in  Burke's  day, 
not  only  an  enjoyment,  but  a  kind  of  rank  and 

1  Even  so  perspicacious  a  Northern  man  as  Lowell,  on  the  very 
eve  of  the  election  in  1860,  was  assuring  his  countrymen  that  the 
Union  was  not  in  danger.  "  Mr.  W.  L.  Yancey,  to  be  sure, 
threatens  to  secede ;  but  the  country  can  get  along  without  him, 
and  we  wish  him  a  prosperous  career  in  foreign  parts.  .  .  .  That 
gentleman's  throwing  a  solitary  somerset  will  hardly  turn  the 
continent  head  over  heels."  How  grimly  history  glozes  that 
ridicule  !  ' 


130  THE   ORATOR    OF  SECESSION 

privilege.  To  the  Southerner,  liberty  meant  noth- 
ing less  than  the  right  of  himself  and  his  com- 
j  m  unity  to  be  free  from  all  interference  by  the 
peculiar  outside  world  which  had  neither  cotton 
nor  slaves, — the  meddlesome  outside  world 

•»!«. 

which  kept  prating  of  a  higher  law,  above  the 
Constitution,  above  the  Scriptures,  rolling  its  /s 
the  while  in  such  a  disagreeable  way. 

It  was  not,  however,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
:ommon  demagogue  that  Yancey  sought  to  lead 
lis  people.  His  claim  to  our  respect  as  a  polit- 
cal  thinker  is  far  stronger  than  that.  He  did 
not  show  them  merely  the  obvious  aspects  of 
the  sectional  controversy.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  doubtful  if  any  mind  in  the  country  dwelt 
more  fixedly  than  his  on  the  relations  of  the 
/  South  to  the  rest  of  the  Union,  and  of  slavery 
to  American  civilization ;  or  if  any  more  re- 
morselessly pursued  the  facts,  from  one  point 
of  view,  to  their  remoter  consequences  and  sig- 

>• 

nificance.  In  this  regard,  Yancey  was  no  un- 
"""worthy  successor  to  Calhoun.  v  He  was  never 
clamorous  or  shrill,  however  vehement  he  grew, 
because  no  particular  exigency  ever  drew  his 
attention  from  the  main  question.  Perceiving 
from  the  outset  that  the  crucial  test  of  strength 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  131 

\between  slavery  and  its  assailants  must  come  in 
pealing  with  the  territories,  he  took  his  stand  on 
J:hat  question,  and  never  changed  it. 

His  first  effort  was  to  bring  his  party  to  his 
position ;  and  his  position  was  first  clearly  stated 
in  a  political  document  once  famous  as  the 
"Alabama  platform"  of  1848.  To  the  Alabama 
Democratic  convention  of  that  year,  called  to 
choose  delegates  to  the  national  convention, 
Yancey  went  as  a  delegate,  carrying  this  docu- 
ment in  his  pocket.  The  committee  on  resolu- 
tions brought  in  a  much  milder  declaration,  but 
by  a  notable  oratorical  triumph  he  got  his  own 
views  adopted  instead.  Following  the  line  of 
j  Calhoun's  resolutions  of  1847,  the  platform  de- 
clared that  it  was  the  duty  of  Congress  not 
merely  to  permit  slavery  in  the  territories  ac- 
quired from  Mexico,  but  to  protect  it  there. 
The  most  important  clause  was  a  denunciation 
f  the  new  theory  of  squatter  sovereignty,  — 
theory  which  Yancey  always  regarded  as  the 
ost  insidious  of  all  attacks  on  the  equality  of 
he  Southern  states  in  the  Union.  The  resolu- 
ion  on  this  doctrine  became  the  true  gospel  of 
the  fire-eaters.  It  read  as  follows  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  opinion  advanced  or  main- 


132  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

tained  by  some  that  the  people  of  a  territory 
acquired  by  the  common  toil,  suffering,  blood, 
and  treasure  of  the  people  of  all  the  states  can, 
in  other  event  than  the  forming  of  a  state  con- 
stitution, preparatory  to  admittance  as  a  state 
in  the  Union,  lawfully  or  constitutionally  pre- 
vent any  citizen  of  any  such  state  from  remov- 
ing to  or  settling  in  such  territory  with  his 
property,  be  it  slave  property  or  other,  is  a 
restriction  as  indefensible  in  principle  as  if  such 
restriction  were  imposed  by  Congress." 

The  delegates  pledged  themselves  to  support 
no  candidate  for  the  presidency  who  would  not 
openly  oppose  both  methods  of  excluding  slavery 
from  the  territories  —  by  the  action  of  Congress, 
and  by  the  action  of  territorial  legislatures.  The 
delegates  to  the  national  convention  at  Baltimore, 
with  Yancey  at  their  head,  were  instructed  to 
act  in  accordance  with  the  resolutions.  With 
Democrats  elsewhere  who  would  not  accept  the 
resolutions  as  good  party  doctrine  the  Alabama 
Democrats  would  have  no  fellowship.  Yancey 
immediately  wrote  to  the  various  aspirants  for 
the  presidential  nomination  for  an  expression  of 
their  views,  in  order  that  he  and  his  associates 
might  be  governed  by  their  replies. 


THE    ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  133 

This  was  the  most  advanced  stand  that  any 
party  convention  had  yet  taken  in  the  controversy ; 
but  for  a  moment  it  looked  as  if  the  whole  of 
the  Southern  democracy  were  going  to  take  it  at 
(jonce.  The  Alabama  platform  had  done  for  the 
proslavery  agitation  what  the  Virginia  and  Ken- 
tucky resolutions,  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  did  for  the  Anti-Federalist  impulse. 

,••  •*% 

Democratic  conventions  in  Florida  and  Virginia 
hastened  to  adopt  it;  the  legislatures  of  Georgia 
and  Alabama  indorsed  it.  Then  suddenly  it  fell 
into  disfavor.  Moderate  men  who  loved  the 
Union  saw  in  it  danger  to  the  country's  peace ; 
politicians,  looking  forward  to  the  campaign, 
scented  danger  to  the  party.  Yancey  returned 
from  a  circuit  of  the  courts  to  find  the  news- 
papers turning  against  him,  the  presidential 
aspirants  replying  evasively  to  his  letters,  and 
even  his  fellow-delegates  wavering.  He  himself 
did  not  waver  for  an  instant.  At  Baltimore,  he 
spoke  firmly,  first  objecting  to  the  nomination 
of  a  candidate  until  a  platform  should  be  agreed 
on^/'and  then  urging  his  views  in  a  minority 
report  from  the  committee  on  resolutions.  His 
amendment  being  rejected,  and  Cass,  the  reputed 
author  of  the  squatter  sovereignty  doctrine,  being 


134  THE    ORATOR    OF  SECESSION 

j  named   as  the   candidate,   he   arose,  and   with  a 

/  single  follower  left  the  hall. 

\^  The  situation  when  he  returned  to  his  home 
Vas,  an  admirable  one  to  try  the  temper  of  an 
(gitator.  The  people  crowded  to  hear  him 
/defend  his  course ;  at  one  meeting  after  another 
the  Democrats  urged  him  in  affectionate  terms 
to  reconsider  his  purpose  and  yield  to  the  will 
of  the  majority.  But  he  had  the  born  agita- 
tor's inability  to  accept  defeat.  He  declined 
to  support  Cass,  or  in  any  way  to  recede  from 
his  position.  On  the  contrary,  he  denounced 
with  the  utmost  bitterness  the  course  of  his 
fellow-delegates  at  Baltimore.  He  would  come 
back  into  the  party  when  it  abandoned  squatter 
sovereignty,  and  not  before.  Alabama  cast  her 
electoral  votes  for  Cass  and  Butler,  and  his 
labors  seemed  to  have  gone  for  nothing.  He 
had  failed  in  his  attempt  at  party  leadership. 
But  one  thing  was  left  to  him  :  his  prestige 

i  as  an  orator  always  sufficed  to  get  him  a  hear- 
ingf'  On  one  occasion,  a  public  meeting  first 
voted  that  he  should  not  be  heard,  and  then, 
when  it  was  announced  that  he  would  speak  on 
the  other  side  of  the  street,  adjourned  thither 
en  masse  without  the  formality  of  a  vote. 


THE  ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  135 

He  kept  on  speaking,  and  before  long  the 
crisis  of  1849-50  gave  him  another  opening. 
As  the  time  for  the  decision  of  the  territorial 
question  approached,  party  lines  in  the  Cotton 
states  grew  weaker  and  weaker.  Democrats  who 
feared  for  the  Union  favored  a  compromise ; 
many  Whigs,  moved  by  their  attachment  to 
slavery  and  the  plantation  system,  favored  a 
firm  stand  for  the  Southern  contention.  Yancey 
found  himself  in  the  forefront  of  the  opposition 
to  Clay's  plan  for  saving  the  Union.  He  be- 
lieved that  the  rights  of  the  Southern  states 
had  been  sacrificed  in  the  compromise  of  1820. 
To  accept  another  arrangement  that  would  hin- 
der the  extension  of  slavery  was  to  his  mind  like 
submitting  to  a  second  branding.  The  honor 
of  the  South  was  at  stake,  not  its  material 
interests  alone.  With  this  appeal  he  won  many 
to  his  side ;  it  played  upon  the  instinct  that  had 
kept  the  duello  alive.  He  even  found  his  way 
back  into  the  councils  of  the  Democratic  party. 
That  party,  in  fact,  seemed  on  the  eve  of  dis- 
ruption throughout  the  South.  Union  men  and 
Southern  Rights  men  were  struggling  for  the 
mastery  in  the  organization.  The  people  were 
really  dividing,  with  little  regard  to  parties,  on 


136  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

the  issue  of  compromise  or  resistance,  and  the 
Whigs  were  for  the  most  part  joining  the 
Union  Democrats.  For  the  first  time,  there  was 
a  clear  division  in  Yancey's  own  state  between 
those  who  thought  the  plantation  system  safe 
inside  the  Union  and  those  who  were  ready  to 
weigh  the  peculiar  interests  and  the  honor  of 
the  South  against  the  value  of  the  Union. 

In  consequence,  Yancey  came  face  to  face 
with  men  who  opposed  his  leadership  not  be- 
cause it  endangered  the  welfare  of  a  party,  but 
because  his  ideas  were  a  menace  to  the  Union 
and  they  loved  it.  The  defence  of  compromise, 
which  in  that  exigency  was  the  defence  of  the 
Union,  was  undertaken  by  men  of  no  ordinary 
ability.  In  Alabama,  Henry  W.  Milliard,  a  Whig 
of  national  reputation  in  those  days,  and  an 
orator  hardly  second  to  Yancey  himself  in  effec- 
tiveness with  popular  audiences,  was  the  Union 
leader.  Senator  William  R.  King,  who  was  soon 
to  die  while  the  Vice-President's  seat  awaited 
him,  counselled  moderation  and  loyalty.  Collier, 
the  governor,  Watts,  who  was  to  be  governor  and 
a  member  of  the  Confederate  cabinet,  Houston, 
who  after  many  years  was  to  lead  his  -people 
out  of  the  horrors  of  reconstruction,  —  were 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  137 

all  firm  Unionists.  It  was  men  like  these  in 
Alabama  and  the  neighboring  states  who  kept 
the  NfofrYJjlfc  Convention  from  doing  any  mischief. 
It  was  they  who  gave 


irfLthe  Southern^_R.ights  party,  his  second  defeat^ 
Their  fight  drew  eloquent  praise  from  Rufus 
Choate  at  the  time,  but  nowadays  it  is  hardly  re- 
membered that  there  ever  was  any  fight  for  the 
Union  in  the  lower  South.  They  were  successful 
in  most  of  the  congressional  districts,  and  the 
party  of  resistance  practically  disappeared.  But 
Yancey,  with  a  corporal's  guard  of  followers,  re- 
fused to  leave  the  field.  In  1852,  a  national 
ticket,  Troup  and  Quitman,  was  actually  nomi- 
nated and  supported  by  a  few  thousands  who 
stood  in  the  South,  as  a  like  handful  of  steadfast 
abolitionists  did  in  the  North,  for  the  view  that 
the  inevitable  conflict  was  at  hand.  Yancey,  in  - 
fact,  never  considered  any  other  provocation  com- 
parable to  the  measures  of  1850."*"  In  1860,  he*^ 
declared  that  if  he  went  out  of  the  Union  because  \ 
of  "a  Black  Republican  victory,"  he  would  go  \ 
"in  the  wake  of  an  inferior  issue"  ;  the  true  justi- 
fication for  such  action,  in  his  mind,  was  that 
the  Union  had  been  destroyed  ten  years  before, 
when  the  Southern  states  were  denied  equality 


138  THE  ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

with  the  free  states  of  the  North  in  the  common 
territorial  possessions. 

But  it  was  clear  that  the  secessionists  were 
in  a  minority.  Yancey  had  failed  as  the  leader 
of  a  separate  party  movement,  as  he  had  failed 
before  to  win  leadership  in  the  old  party.  He  and 
his  associates  in  the  South  were  in  like  case  with 
Garrison  and  other  extremists  in  the  North. 
/His  power  waned  again,  but  his  fame  was  con- 
/stantly  growing.'  It  did  not  proceed  from  above 
downward,  like  the  oratorical  reputations  of  the 
office-holders  at  Washington,  but  \pread  in  an 
ever  widening  circle  among  the  people  themselves, 
until  it  pervaded  states  where  his  voice  had  not 
yet  been  heard.  His  figure  was  now  distinct  and 
threatening  far  beyond  the  limits  of  his  immediate 
personal  influence.  He  had  become  the  orator 
of  secession,  the  storm  centre  of  Southern  dis- 
contents. More  than  that,  he  had  made  himself 
feared  by  moderate  men  everywhere  as  the  arch- 
_enemy  of  compromise.  '  Now  that  Clay  was  dead, 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  had  succeeded  to  the  leader- 
ship of  those  who  trusted  Clay's  devices.  In 
Douglas,  and  Northern  men  like  him,  Yancey  saw 
the  constant  obstacle  in  his  path  to  leadership  in 
the  South,  for  it  was  they  who  were  forever  be- 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  139 

guiling  the  South  with  bargains  and  promises. 
Douglas,  on  the  other  hand,  might  well  have 
studied,  during  the  truce  that  followed  the  battle 
of  1850,  the  man  who,  far  more  than  any  North- 
ern rival,  threatened  him  with  defeat  alike  in  his 
policy  and  in  his  ambition. 

But  for  the  moment  Douglas  was  having  his 
way.  His  doctrine  of  squatter  sovereignty  had 
triumphed  in  the  compromise,  and  he  proceeded 
now  to  extend  it  into  new  fields.  The  passage 
of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  in  1854  marked  the 
lowest  ebb  in  Yancey's  political  fortunes.  It 
seemed  to  prove  what  his  opponents  at  home 
had  all  along  contended,  —  that  slavery  was  safe 
in  the  Union ;  for  was  not  the  whole  great  West 
thrown  open  to  the  master  and  the  slave  ?  In 
vain  he  warned  his  people  against  the  delusive 
concession.  His  was  no  patient  spirit,  but  he  was 
compelled  to  wait  for  events  to  prove  that  Douglas 
was  not  the  saviour  of  the  South. 

Events,  however,  were  moving  rapidly.  The  ex- 
tremists of  the  North  were  helping  the  extremist 
leaders  in  the  South.  The  Free-soilers  of  Kan- 
sas were  working  for  them ;  John  Brown  was  their 
ally.  For  a  moment,  indeed,  Yancey  seems  to 
have  been  misled  by  the  Cincinnati  platform  of 


I4O  THE    ORATOR    OF  SECESSION 

1856,  and  by  Buchanan's  adroitly  worded  letter 
of  acceptance,  into  the  belief  that  his  triumph  was 
coming  in  the  form  in  which  he  had  sought  it  at 
Baltimore,  —  within  the  lines  of  the  party  ;  for, 
apparently  thinking  that  the  party  had  discarded 
the  Douglas  doctrine  when  it  rejected  Douglas 
as  a  candidate,  he  went  into  the  Alabama  conven- 
tion, regained  his  party  standing,  and  supported 
Buchanan.  But  the  party  persisted  with  the 
Douglas  policy  in  Kansas,  and  with  the  failure 
of  the  scheme  Yancey  saw  the  approach  of  his 
real  triumph^  —  a  triumph  that  should  crush 
Douglas,  who  for  a  time  had  made  him  power- 
less, overthrow  the  time-servers  in  his  party,  who 
had  twice  overthrown  him,  and  bring  to  his  feet 
his  own  people,  who  had  twice  refused  to  follow 
him. 

The  vision  made  him  more  impatient  than 
ever.  He  devoted  himself  to  the  ways  and  means 
of  hastening  the  consummation.  In  Southern 
commercial  conventions  he  insisted  with  arrogance 
on  the  separateness  of  the  South's  industrial  in- 
terests. He  even  denounced  as  unconstitutional 
the  laws  forbidding  the  foreign  slave-trade,  sup- 
porting his  position  with  the  most  extraordinary 
reasoning  in  the  history  of  constitutional  inter- 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  141 

pretations.  Finally,  in  1858,  he  wrote,  and  after- 
ward defended,  a  note  to  a  correspondent  which 
found  its  way  into  print  and  became  known  far 
and  wide  as  the  "scarlet  letter."  "No  national 
party  fan  save  us,"  he  declared;  "no  sectional 
party  can  save  us.  But  if  we  could  do  as  our 
fathers  did  —  organize  committees  of  safety  all 
over  the  Cotton  states  (and  it  is  only  in  them  that 
we  can  look  for  any  effective  movement)  —  we 
shall  [sic]  fire  the  Southern  heart,  instruct  the 
Southern  mind,  give  confidence  to  each  other,  and 
at  the  proper  moment,  by  one  organized  concerted 
action,  we  can  precipitate  the  Cotton  states  into 
revolution." 

The  Democrats  of  Alabama,  now  united  on  the 
''platform  of  1 848,  to  which  even  the  moderate  men 
had  been  driven  by  the  outcome  of  the  squatter 
sovereignty  experiment,  sent  Yancey  to  the  na- 
tional convention  at  Charleston  with  practically 
the  same  message  he  had  carried  to  Baltimore. 
About  the  same  time,  the  legislature  instructed 
the  governor  to  call  a  convention  of  the  people 
of  the  state  in  the  event  of  the  election  of  a 
"Black  Republican"  to  the  presidency.  Yancey 
went  to  Charleston  assured  that  the  whole  lower 
South  was  behind  him.  Douglas,  still  pursuing 


142  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

his  great  ambition,  saw  his  fate  in  Yancey's 
hands,  and  went  as  far  to  meet  the  fire-eaters  as 
he  could  go  without  abandoning  all  hope  of  an 
effective  support  in  the  North. 

But  the  men  of  the  Cotton  states,  knowing  that 
/their  hour  was  come,  would  accept  nothing  less 
'  than  the  whole  of  that  for  which  they  had  so  long 
contended.  When  once  again,  after  twelve  years 
of  defeat  and  exile,  Yancey  rose  to  speak  before 
a  national  convention,  he  had  such  an  opportunity 
as  rarely  comes  even  to  an  American  orator. 
The  imperious  tones  of  his  wonderful  voice  fell 
with  strange  power  on  the  assembly.  The 
trembling  delegates  hung  upon  his  words,  for 
they  saw  in  his  hands  the  fate,  not  of  Douglas 
alone,  but  of  the  party,  perhaps  of  the  Union. 
If  to  grant  his  demands  was  party  suicide,  it 
was  hardly  less  party  suicide  to  refuse  them.  By 
a  few  votes,  the  Southern  platform  was  rejected. 
He  left  the  hall,  and  now,  not  the  single  follower 
of  twelve  years  before,  but  the  delegates  of  seven 
states,  trooped  at  his  heels.  In  the  end,  yet  others 
followed. 

When  Douglas,  finally  receiving  the  nomination 
of  those  who  remained,  went  before  the  people, 
he  found  Yancey  awaiting  him.  Declining  the 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  143 

offer  of  the  vice-presidency  from  the  friends  of 
Douglas,  Yancey  had  joined  the  seceders  at  Balti- 
more, where  he  favored  the  nomination  of  Breck- 
_inridge  on  the  extreme  Southern  platform,  and 
then  entered  on  a  canvass  of  the  Northern  states  : 
a  tour  de  force  that  smacks  either  of  overfed  am- 
bition or  else  of  a  real  hope  that  there  might  be 
such  a  union  as  he  had  always  held  the  Consti- 
tution to  define, — a  union  in  which  the  will  of 
the  majority  should  count  for  nothing  against 
the  letter  of  the  Constitution  as  he  read  it.  He 
spoke  in  the  Middle  states,  in  New  England, 
and  in  the  West.  He  even  spoke  in  Faneuil 
Hall,  and  silenced  a  threatening  uproar  where 
Phillips  had  conquered  his  first  mob.  His  atti- 
tude toward  his  Northern  audiences  is  perhaps 
best  exhibited  in  his  last  speech  on  Northern 
soil,  made  when  the  result  of  the  election  was 
already  clearly  foreshadowed. 

" My  countrymen,"  he  said  at  Cincinnati,  "you 
cannot  carry  out  the  policy  of  the  Black  Repub- 
lican party.  You  cannot  carry  it  out,  and  expect 
the  South  to  remain  submissively  bowing  down 
to  your  supremacy.  We  are  for  the  Union. 
What  union  ?  For  the  union,  gentlemen,  con- 
tained between  these  two  lids"  (holding  up  the 


144  THE   ORATOR    OF  SECESSION 

Constitution).  "...  Can  you  obtain  anything, 
gentlemen,  by  destroying,  even  if  you  are  able, 
my  section,  save  the  memory  of  a  great  wrong 
that  would  haunt  you  through  eternity  ?  .  .  .  But 
do  not,  do  not,  my  friends  of  the  North,  —  I  say 
it  before  you  in  no  spirit,  gentlemen,  of  servile 
submission  to  your  power,  or  of  servile  acknowl- 
edgment of  that  power,  for  as  God  rules  I  have  no 
fear  of  it,  as  much  as  I  respect  it, — but  do  not, 
merely  because  you  have  the  power,  do  not 
wreathe  your  arms  around  the  pillars  of  our 
liberty,  and,  like  a  blind  Samson,  pull  down  that 
great  temple  on  your  heads  as  well  as  ours." 
/  From  the  time  he  crossed  the  Ohio,  his  journey 
homeward  was  like  a  triumphal  progress.  At 
Nashville,  the  horses  were  taken  from  his  carriage 
and  his  admirers  drew  it  through  the  streets. 
At  New  Orleans,  an  informal  holiday  was  pro- 
claimed, that  all  might  hear  him.  When  he 
reached  Montgomery,  he  found  Douglas  just  leav- 
ing the  city ;  that  night,  no  hall  could  contain 
the  multitudes  thronging  to  hear  their  champion, 
whom  they  hailed  as  the  foremost  orator  of 
the  world.  At  last  they  were  ready  to  follow 
where  he  led.  The  lower  South  voted  for  the 
candidate  of  his  choice,  and  the  day  after  the 


THE    ORATOR    OF  SECESSION  145 

election  lifelong  opponents  of  his  policy  joined 
their  voices  to  his  and  advocated  the  final  step 
into  disunion. 

But  his  triumph  was  not  to  be  completed  with- 
out a  struggle.  The  friends  of  the  Union  in  his 
own  state  were  driven  to  the  wall,  but  they 
made  one  more  gallant  fight  before  they  yielded. 
They  were  still  strong  in  northern  Alabama,  and 
with  them  were  joined  some  who,  seeing  seces- 
sion inevitable,  were  yet  disposed  to  wait  until 
cooperation  with  other  states  could  be  assured, 
and  others,  no  doubt,  who  were  stirred  by  no 
higher  motive  than  a  sullen  unwillingness  to  ac- 
cept a  leadership  so  long  rejected.  The  temper 
of  the  convention  was  in  doubt  until  it  assem- 
bled, and  on  the  first  test  vote  the  majority  for 
immediate  secession  was  but  eight.  The  spirited 
opposition  roused  Yancey  into  an  arrogance  which 
the  Union  leaders,  who  were  wanting  neither 
in  ability  nor  in  courage,  answered  with  sturdy 
defiance.  Defeated,  however,  in  their  attempt 
to  get  the  ordinance  submitted  to  the  people, 
they  for  the  most  part  yielded,  in  the  hope  that 
unanimity  might  give  strength  to  the  movement 
they  deprecated ;  but  no  less  than  twenty-four 
refused  to  sign  the  instrument.  The  results  of 


146  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

submitting  the  ordinance  to  the  people  in  Texas, 
and  later  in  Virginia,  give  us  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  the  decision  of  Alabama  could  have 
been  changed. 

/  Yancey's  desire  was  history.  Suddenly,  and  as 
'if  by  some  enchantment,  the  Cotton  Kingdom 
had  risen  to  face  the  world.  Before  his  eyes, 

:  in    his    own    home,   he    saw   a    new   government 
established,  a  new  flag  unfurled.     It  was  fit,  in- 

i  deed,  that   his   should   be   the  voice   to  welcome 
Jefferson  Davis  when  he  came  to  take  his  place 

1  at  the  head  of  the  new  Confederacy,  for  no 
other  single  voice  had  availed  so  much  to  call 
it  into  existence.  But  his  work  was  done.  He 
soon  sailed  away  to  Europe  at  the  head  of  the 
commission  sent  to  secure  recognition  for  the 
Confederacy  among  the  great  powers.  Return- 
ing from  that  bootless  mission,  he  took  his  seat 
in  the  Confederate  Senate,  and  in  the  turbulent 
debates  of  that  gloomy  and  impotent  legislature, 
his  last  energies  were  consumed.  A  painful 
malady  had  long  sapped  his  strength,  and  in  the 
mer  of  1863  he  went  home  to  die.  In  the 
delirium  of  fever  his  voice  sometimes  rose  in 
fierce  commands  to  visionary  hosts  on  unseen 
battlefields.  But  his  passing  was  little  marked. 


THE    ORATOR    OF  SECESSION  147 

The  orators  had  given  place  to  the  captains.  His 
people  were  working  out  in  blood  and  fire  the 
destiny  up  to  which  he  had  led  them. 

I  shall  not  attempt  an  estimate  of  this  career. 
There  is  the  same  doubt  of  its  importance  which 
attaches  always  to  the  career  of  a  forerunner. 
Events  would  perhaps  have  taken  the  same  course 
without  him,  and  the  silent  forces  would  have 
worked  out  the  inevitable  if  he  had  never  raised 
his  voice.  Moreover,  his  was  but  one,  though 
the  clearest  and  firmest,  of  many  eloquent  voices. 
But  surely  it  is  too  important  a  career  to  be 
neglected  by  those  who  write  our  history.  Yet 
our  knowledge  of  the  man  is  almost  entirely 

\matter  of  tradition.  \He  wrote  no  books,  and 
published  no  collection  of  his  speeches.  The 

/fragments  that  remain  bear  the  marks  of  imper- 
fect reporting,  for  the  most  effective  of  his 
addresses  were  those  delivered  before  popular 
audiences,  usually  in  the  open  air,  and  they  were 
not  taken  down.  What  is  left  could  never  be 
treated  as  literature,  and  conveys,  indeed,  but  a 
vague  notion  of  his  oratory.  Yet  there  are  para- 
graphs which,  read  with  the  single  purpose  to  esti- 
mate their  immediate  effect  on  those  who  heard 
them,  and  with  due  regard  to  time  and  place, 


148  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

\  impress   one  very  strongly  with   his   mastery  of 
the  instrument  he  used.     The   sentences   some- 
times   rush    like    charging    cavalry.     There    are 
/  phrases  that  ring  out  like  bugle  calls.     It  is  the 
/  language  of  passionate  purpose  ;  of  an  orator  bent 
on  rousing,  convincing,  overwhelming  the  men  in 
front  of  him,  not  on  meeting   the   requirements 
of  any  standard  of  public  speech. 

__Of  his  look  and  bearing  we  have  hptfpr  rpr^rj, 
for  it  is  of  these  things  that  Southern  tradition 
is  most  careful.  He  had  little  of  the  poseur  about 
him ;  what  most  impressed  men  was  his  grim 
\fixedness  of  purpose.  He  was  not  given  to  fran- 
tic gesticulation,  and  it  is  said  that  he  rarely  oc- 
cupied more  than  a  square  yard  of  space  even  in 
his  longest  speeches.  His  chief  physical  endow- 
ment was  his  voice,  —  "the  most  perfect  voice," 
one  tells  us,  "  that  ever  aroused  a  friendly  audience 
to  enthusiasm  or  curbed  to  silence  the  tumults  of 
the  most  inimical."  A  youth  who  heard  it  years 
ago,  and  who,  since  then,  in  the  course  of  a  long 
career  in  Congress  and  in  the  Cabinet,  has  doubt- 
less encountered  all  the  notable  orators  of  his 
time,  declares  it  was  "sweeter,  clearer,  and  of 
more  wonderful  compass  and  flexibility  "  than  any 
other  he  ever  heard.  In  personal  appearance, 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  149 

though  handsome,  he  was  in  no  wise  extraordi- 
nary. There  was  even  a  lack  of  animation  in  his 
ordinary  aspect  in  his  later  years,  and  a  look  of 
nervous  exhaustion.  The  mastery  and  pride  of 
his  face  in  the  portrait  in  the  state-house  at  Mont- 
gomery is  sufficiently  exceptional  even  there  to 
draw  upon  the  ill-painted  canvas  the  eye  that 
wanders  among  the  unremembered  governors  and 
judges  of  his  time.^  But  oratory,  we  know,  is  action, 
and  the  truer  likeness  of  the  man  is  the  image 
of  tremendous  articulate  passion  which  abides  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  fell  under  his  power  half 
a  century  ago. 

There  is  so  much  about  Yancey  to  suggest  a 
comparison  with  Wendell  Phillips  that  I  have  been 
constantly  tempted  to  set  the  two  side  by  side  in 
my  thought.  Their  names,  indeed,  were  often 
coupled  in  the  invective  of  the  moderate  men  of 
those  days  :  Yancey  the  "  fire-eater,"  and  Phillips 
the  "abolitionist  fanatic."  Their  careers  stand  out 
in  striking  similarity  and  in  equally  striking  con- 
trast. The  similarity  lay  chiefly  in  their  mental 
characteristics  and  methods  of  work ;  the  contrast 
was  in  the  causes  for  which  they  stood,  and  the 
fates  they  met. 


150  THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION 

It  is  easy  to  think  of  them  as  the  Luther  and 
the  St.  Ignatius  of  the  revolt  against  slavery. 
But  Yancey's  spiritual  kinship  was  not  wholly 
with  the  Spaniard :  in  him,  no  less  than  in  Phil- 
lips, there  was  somptHir^g-  of  f-hp  Cprrnfln's  temper^ 
The  two  extremists  were  alike  in  their  relentless 

fr>    pypry   form     of    rnmprftrni'qp,    tO 


disguise  with  which  men  sought  to  conceal  the 
sterner  aspect  of  affairs.  If  both  were  ^enth 
asts,  neither  was  a^^fnejre  dreamer.  The  jfever  in 
their  blood  brought^them.  not  fanciful  visions,  but 
ji  keener  insight  into  the  disorder  of  the  body 
politicthan  was  given  to  more  sluggish  natures. 
The  oratory  of  both  was  simpj[g_and  direct,  be- 
cajjse  both  saw  and  purposed  clearly.  Both  were 
appealing  from  the  politicians  to  the  people,  *nti 
they  spoke  a  language  which  the  people  under.- 
stood.  however  the  politicians  marvelled.  Both,  I 
sometimes  think,  were  wiser  than  their  contem- 
poraries who  were  judging  the  situation  by  the 
standard  of  the  ordinary,  because  both  were  alive 
to  the  imminence  of  an  extraordinary  crisis. 

But  here  the  likeness  ends  and  the  contrast 
begins.  The  heroism  which  one  displayed  for  a 
moral  principle  the  other  devoted  to  a  political 
purpose.  One  fortified  himself  with  an  appeal  to 


THE   ORATOR   OF  SECESSION  151 

a  higher  law,  the  other  with  the  compromises  of 
the  Constitution.  One  looked  to  the  future  for 
his  justification,  the  other  demanded  of  the  future 
that  it  break  not  with  the  past.  Standing  thus 
for  causes  as  opposite  as  the  poles,  they  en- 
countered destinies  as  diverse  :  one,  a  success 
that  proved  the  beginning  of  utter  failure  ;  the 
other,  defeats  that  are  forgotten  in  his  dateless 
triumph. 

For  the  surprising  and   neglected  fact   of  the 

\>' 
outcome  is  that  Yancey  really  led  his  people  ii\ 

the  way  he  chose,  while  Phillips  never  marked 
out  the  path  along  which  the  Republic  was  finally 
to  march  to  the  heights  of  his  ideal.  Not  one 
specific  design  of  the  abolitionist  extremists  was 
ever  accomplished  in  the  way  they  planned  : 
neither  the  breaking  away  of  New  England,  nor 
the  rising  of  the  slaves  under  John  Brown,  nor 
any  interference  by  Congress  with  slavery  in  the 
states.  But  in  the  end  freedom  prevailed.  ,Yan^ 
£ey's  definite  purpose  was  to  erect  a_  Southern 
Confederacy,  and  he  died  under  its  flag.  Vet, 
tQ-day.-hiS--£Q_nfederacy  is  a  vanished  dreamJ_aacL 
he  himself,.  within  thelives  of  men  who  saw  his 
little  more  than  aJrariifinn 


The  traveller  in  New  England,  well  acquainted 


152  THE    ORATOR    OF  SECESSION 

with  the  just  fame  of  the  great  abolitionist,  is  sur- 
prised to  find  among  his  surviving  contemporaries 
an  inadequate  appreciation  of  his  genius.  The 
traveller  in  the  lower  South  is  equally  astonished 
to  find  that  a  man  whose  name  he  has  scarcely 
heard  is  honored  there  as  the  first  orator  of  the 
century.  On  the  gravestone  of  this  forgotten  ora- 
tor it  is  recorded  that  he  was  "justified  in  all  his 
deeds  "  ;  yet  all  about  his  grave  there  are  so  many 
graves  of  simple  and  honorable  gentlemen  who 
gave  their  lives  and  fortunes  to  the  dreadful  task 
he  set  them  that  one  can  fancy  even  his  proud 
spirit  crying  out  to  be  delivered  from  the  body  of 
that  death.  Nevertheless,  the  generous  people 
who  followed  him  have  not  condemned  him ;  nor 
may  we,  since  he  was  an  orator,  deny  him  refuge 
in  the  defence  of  Demosthenes :  "  Lay  not  the 
blame  on  me,  if  it  was  Philip's  fortune  to  win  the 
battle  ;  the  end  depended  on  the  will  of  God,  and 
not  on  me." 


III.    THE   RESOURCES   OF  THE 
CONFEDERACY 


Ill 

THE   RESOURCES   OF   THE   CON- 
FEDERACY 

IN  one  of  Mr.  W.  E.  Henley's  hospital  poems, 
a  sailor,  "set  at  euchre  on  his  elbow,"  tells  in 
twenty  lines  what  he  saw  from  the  wharf  at 
Charleston  when  he  was  there  off  a  blockade 
runner  near  the  end  of  the  American  Civil  War. 
Professor  John  C.  Schwab,  of  Yale,  after  long 
and  patient  investigation  of  many  obscure  sources, 
has  written  a  financial  and  industrial  history  of 
the  South  during  the  war  which  exhibits  every 
characteristic  of  the  most  painstaking  school  of 
economic  historians.  His  paragraphs  are  so  meaty 
with  facts,  his  references  so  abundant,  his  method 
so  consistently  scientific,  his  work,  in  a  word,  is  so 
thoroughly  well  done,  that  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
industry  and  intelligence  could  have  gone  farther. 

Yet  it  is  a  question  whether  "The  Confederate 
States  of  America"  or  Mr.  Henley's  verses  will 
prove  the  more  serviceable  to  the  ordinary  reader, 
trying  to  get  a  notion  of  what  was  inside  the  shell 


156   THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

that  crackled  to  pieces  before  the  great  armies  of 
Grant  and  Sherman.  Such  is  the  complexity  of 
civilized  societies,  so  many  and  so  artificial  are  the 
forms  which  the  ordinary  processes  of  production 
and  distribution,  buying  and  selling,  borrowing 
and  lending,  come  to  take,  so  constantly  does  the 
play  of  human  motives  disarrange  the  machinery 
of  industry  and  government,  so  wide  a  margin  of 
error  must  the  student  allow  in  his  observations, 
that  failure  in  one  sense  is  always  predicable  of 
an  enterprise  like  Professor  Schwab's.  The  work 
will  of  necessity  be  incomplete,  for  to  reconstruct 
a  civilization  by  setting  one  stone  upon  another 
is  beyond  the  industry  of  a  lifetime;  and  it  will 
not  be  rounded  out  by  the  reader  himself,  it  is  not 
supplemented  by  his  sympathetic  understanding, 
it  does  not  stimulate  his  imagination.  The  differ- 
ence between  Professor  Schwab's  treatment  of 
the  dead  Confederacy  and  what  a  poet,  a  novelist, 
a  literary  historian,  might  do  with  it,  is  like  the 
difference  between  an  artist's  and  an  anatomist's 
treatment  of  a  human  body.  We  do  not  judge 
the  artist's  work  by  the  number  or  even  by  the 
truth  of  its  details ;  its  aim  is  to  make  us  see 
and  understand  the  whole  by  virtue  of  a  quality 
common  to  us  and  it.  On  the  anatomist  or  the 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY  157 

anatomist-historian  our  demand  is  different.  His 
work  is  unfinished  until  the  last  tissue  of  the 
body  or  the  body  politic  is  dissected  into  its 
minutest  cells.  Neither  anatomy  nor  political 
science  can  ever  attain  its  object  completely,  as 
painting  and  poetry  do  sometimes  attain  theirs. 
Mr.  Henley's  sailor  man  might  not  more  enlighten 
us  if  his  glimpse  from  the  wharf  were  widened 
into  a  vision  of  the  whole  harassed  South.  Pro- 
fessor Schwab's  book  will  be  the  more  valuable 
for  every  correction  which  he  may  make  in  his 
tables  of  prices  and  note-issues,  for  every  news- 
paper file  which  he  may  in  a  future  edition  make 
a  footnote  to  refer  us  to. 

But  there  is  also  a  sense  in  which  a  work  like 
this  may  be  complete,  —  a  sense  in  which  it  may 
very  well  pass  completeness  and  tend  to  surfeit : 
that  is  to  say,  if  one  has  regard  for  the  reader's 
limitations.  There  is  a  point  beyond  which 
the  writer  cannot  go  without  disregarding  the 
"reader"  altogether,  not  in  the  matter  of  his 
mere  interest  and  pleasure,  but  in  the  matter  of 
his  attention  and  memory,  of  his  ability  to  carry 
a  mass  of  facts  in  his  head  long  enough  to  connect 
them  with  what  may  follow.  Of  course,  there 
are  readers  and  readers,  but  it  should  be  no 


158      THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

harder  to  gauge  the  average  mind  in  this  than 
in  many  other  of  the  respects  in  which  one  must 
gauge  it  in  books  and  in  life,  and  to  stop  short  of 
the  line  beyond  which,  for  the  average  mind, 
scarcely  a  single  general  principle  or  important 
relation  of  cause  and  effect  will  stand  out  through 
the  haze  to  reward  the  effort  which  the  reading  of 
such  a  book  requires. 

Of  course,  too,  it  is  not  the  "  reader  "  but  the 
student  that  books  like  this  are  meant  for.  Yet 
the  reader  also  has  some  claims.  There  are  ques- 
tions which  every  intelligent  person  is  moved 
to  ask  about  the  Confederacy,  and  here  are  the 
answers;  but  one  may  miss  them  altogether  if 
the  results  of  the  investigation  are  set  forth  too 
abstrusely,  or  too  cautiously,  or  too  minutely. 
Professor  Schwab  and  another  scientist,  Profes- 
sor E.  A.  Smith,  of  Allegheny  College,  —  who 
limits  himself,  however,  to  a  study  of  the  Confed- 
erate treasury,  —  come  forward  from  their  dissec- 
tion of  a  defunct  state,  and  we  wish  to  know  of 
them,  not  what  discoveries  or  confirmations  they 
have  to  report  to  their  brother  scientists,  but 
what  was  the  strength  that  sustained  the  South- 
ern Confederacy  while  it  lived,  and  what  disease  or 
wound  or  weakness  it  died  of.  Perhaps  it  may 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY     159 

be  practicable  to  extract  from  their  reports,  re- 
strained as  they  are,  and  resolutely  void  of  gossip 
and  conjecture,  some  satisfaction  of  our  unenlight- 
ened curiosity. 

Our  question  is  not  meant  to  cover  the  military 
struggle.  With  the  main  features  of  that,  edu- 
cated Americans  —  and  many  Englishmen  as  well, 
now  that  they  have  books  like  Colonel  Hender- 
son's "Stonewall  Jackson" — are  reasonably  well 
acquainted.  But  it  seems  nowadays  to  be  gener- 
ally conceded  that  while  the  armies  on  both  sides 
were  composed  almost  entirely  of  volunteers,  and 
so  small  that  the  North's  superiority  in  wealth  and 
numbers  had  not  begun  to  tell,  the  South's  advan- 
tages of  fighting  on  interior  lines  and  of  possessing 
more  good  riders  and  good  shots  did  tell  heavily. 
It  would  perhaps  be  conceded  also  that  the  South 
had  men  enough,  if  she  could  have  kept  them 
in  the  field  well  armed  and  well  clothed  and  well 
fed,  to  withstand  even  the  vast  numbers  which 
the  North  did  put  in  the  field  and  liberally  equip 
and  sustain.  We  all  understand,  too,  that  after 
the  first  few  months  the  blockade  forced  the  Con- 
federates to  rely  on  their  own  resources  far  more 
nearly  altogether  than  the  Southern  leaders  in 
secession  had  apprehended.  Were  the  available 


160      THE  RESOURCES   OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

resources  inadequate,  or  were  they  neglected  or 
wasted  ?  Why  were  the  Southern  armies  always 
ill  armed,  ill  clad,  ill  fed,  ill  paid  ?  How  far  was 
the  outcome,  inevitable  though  it  may  have  been, 
immediately  attributable  to  faults  and  errors  ? 

If  we  disregard  the  already  accomplished  effects 
of  slavery  on  Southern  industry,  it  was  probably 
of  advantage  to  the  Confederates  that  the  laborers 
in  their  fields  were  as  a  class  less  easily  demoral- 
ized by  war  than  a  free  white  peasantry  would 
have  been.  There  is  nothing  to  indicate  that, 
until  the  country  was  overrun  by  Union  troops, 
the  blacks  on  the  farms  and  plantations  were  less 
efficient  than  in  peace.  They  made  no  move 
to  rise.  It  was  not  found  necessary  to  exempt 
from  military  service  more  than  one  owner  or 
overseer  for  every  twenty  slaves,  and  the  exemp- 
tion did  not  keep  more  than  five  or  six  thousand 
men  out  of  the  army.  Here  was  an  agricultural 
labor  system,  defective,  no  doubt,  but  which  did 
not  need  to  be  adapted  to  the  emergency,  and 
which,  when  it  was  diverted  from  cotton-growing 
—  partly  by  the  loss  of  the  market  for  cotton,  and 
partly  by  concerted  purpose — was  equal  to  the  task 
of  producing  a  food  supply  adequate  to  all  wants, 
save  that  certain  foods  in  common  use,  but  not 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY     l6l 

absolutely  indispensable,  could  not  be  produced 
in  the  South  at  all.  For  some  of  these,  like  tea 
and  coffee,  passable  substitutes  were  contrived ; 
the  insufficiency  of  salt  and  of  various  medicines 
was  the  difficulty  most  nearly  insuperable.  There 
was,  besides,  a  good  part  of  the  four  and  a  half 
million  bales  of  cotton  of  the  crop  of  1860,  the 
entire  four  millions  of  the  crop  of  1861,  the  million 
or  more  of  1862,  the  half  million  each  of  1863  and 
1864.  The  South  had  sufficient  food,  and  it  had 
in  abundance  a  principal  raw  material  of  clothing. 
Tobacco  was  plentiful,  —  no  mean  item  in  war, 
as  veterans  both  of  the  Civil  War  and  of  the 
Spanish  War  will  testify.  Tanneries  were  com- 
moner than  any  other  sort  of  manufactories,  and 
the  supply  of  leather,  though  scant,  could  be  eked 
out  with  various  substitutes.  There  were  vast 
resources  of  timber,  and  all  the  raw  material  for 
making  iron ;  contrary  to  the  general  notion,  the 
great  deposits  of  iron  ore  in  northern  Alabama 
were  known  before  the  war,  and  tentative  attempts 
to  exploit  them  had  been  made. 

But  it  was  simply  impossible  to  build  the  fur- 
naces and  mills  and  railroads  which  were  needed 
to  make  these  resources  fully  effective.     The  fact 
that  the   manufactories    and  railroads   were    not 
ii 


1 62   THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

brought  up  to  the  requisite  development  is  in 
itself  the  best  of  reasons  for  believing  that  they 
could  not  have  been,  with  the  labor  and  the  capi- 
tal that  were  available;  for  such  manufactories 
as  were  set  up,  such  railroads  as  were  already 
built,  —  some  of  them  were  extended  with  govern- 
ment aid,  —  were  extremely  profitable.  The  mo- 
tives of  self-interest  and  patriotism,  combined 
with  the  pressure  of  want  and  of  military  neces- 
sity, were  not  enough.  A  beginning  was  made 
on  many  lines,  and  in  consequence  there  appeared 
for  the  first  time  in  the  Cotton  states  a  strong 
sentiment  for  protection,  and  one  heard  it  said 
that  the  blockade,  like  the  old  embargo  and  the 
second  war  with  Great  Britain,  was  going  to  prove 
a  blessing.  But  four  years  of  the  most  favorable 
conditions  under  peace  would  not  have  brought 
these  industries  near  maturity.  The  machinery 
and  the  skilled  labor  could  not  be  found  under  the 
actual  conditions  of  a  blockaded  coast  and  an 
invaded  border.  The  government  itself,  finding 
it  impracticable  to  get  all  the  small  arms  and 
ammunition  it  needed  from  abroad,  made  a  head- 
way which  was  on  the  whole  remarkable  toward 
supplying  its  wants  at  home ;  but  the  factories  it 
established  could  not  turn  out  small  arms  fast 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY   163 

enough.  The  greater  number  came  from  United 
States  arsenals  seized  at  the  outset,  from  cap- 
tures in  battle,  and  from  abroad.  In  heavy  ord- 
nance, mainly  through  the  work  of  the  Tredegar 
Iron  Works  at  Richmond,  the  domestic  output 
was  more  considerable.  President  Davis,  who  had 
been  in  the  old  army,  and  Secretary  of  War  in 
Pierce's  Cabinet,  could  bring  a  valuable  training 
and  experience  to  the  particular  problem  of  arms 
and  equipment,  and  his  account  of  what  was  done 
with  the  means  at  hand  shows  that  it  was  done 
intelligently  and  vigorously.  We  must  admit  the 
impossibility  of  so  transforming  the  whole  indus- 
trial system  of  the  South  as  to  meet  the  sudden 
demand  for  commodities  which  had  never  been 
produced  there,  and  limit  ourselves  to  the  question 
whether  the  best  use  was  made  of  what  the  Con- 
federates could  produce  and  of  their  opportunities 
to  buy  or  borrow. 

There  was,  first,  the  hope  of  aid  from  foreign 
countries,  and  of  that  cotton  was  naturally  the 
basis.  The  situation  was  tantalizing.  The  price 
of  cotton  in  England  rose  from  the  moment  of 
separation,  and  it  continued  to  rise  until,  when  the 
blockade  became  effective,  it  reached  a  figure 
which  would  have  enriched  every  planter  in  the 


1 64   THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

Confederacy  if  he  could  have  marketed  his  prod- 
uct. Firms  and  individuals  who  took  the  risks 
of  running  cotton  through  the  blockade  grew  rich, 
notwithstanding  heavy  losses.  Foreign  concerns 
adventured  in  it.  The  government  went  into  it 
extensively  through  agencies  like  John  Frazer  & 
Co.,  of  Charleston,  by  sharing  the  risks  and  profits 
of  private  enterprise,  and  by  establishing  a  bureau 
and  putting  four  steamers  of  its  own  in  commis- 
sion. At  the  end  of  1863,  Bullock,  head  of  the 
secret  service  abroad,  reported  that  thirty-one 
thousand  bales  had  been  shipped  by  the  govern- 
ment from  the  two  ports  of  Charleston  and  Wil- 
mington to  Liverpool.  A  separate  bureau  was 
established  in  Texas,  and  there  was  a  lively  trade 
in  cotton  and  small  arms  across  the  Mexican  line ; 
but  with  the  fall  of  Vicksburg  the  Federal  mas- 
tery of  the  line  of  the  Mississippi  materially  les- 
sened the  practical  value  of  government  assets  in 
that  quarter.  The  suggestion  that  the  govern- 
ment might  at  the  very  outset  have  got  posses- 
sion of  all  the  cotton  in  the  country,  shipped  it 
abroad,  made  it  a  basis  of  credit  with  foreign 
governments  and  financiers,  and  grown  rich  with 
its  rise  in  value,  has  often  been  made,  but  is 
readily  dismissed.  The  government  had  not 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY   165 

the  means  either  to  buy  the  cotton  or  to  trans- 
port it. 

After  England,  it  is  probable  that  the  United 
States,  of  all  "foreign  countries,"  contributed  the 
most,  through  trade,  of  the  things  which  the 
Confederates  were  in  pressing  need  of.  Always 
forbidden,  at  first  sincerely  opposed,  then  winked 
at,  and  finally  shared  in  by  the  Confederate 
government,  trade  through  the  lines  was  con- 
stantly proving  the  strength  of  the  commercial  im- 
pulse on  both  sides.  Cotton  and  tobacco  slipped 
out ;  salt,  bacon,  and  other  commodities  came  in. 
President  Lincoln  had  and  exercised  the  authority 
to  license  individuals  to  trade  with  the  Confed- 
erates. The  government  at  Richmond  actually 
speculated  in  the  notes  of  the  United  States. 

But  one  foreign  loan  was  attempted,  and  of  that 
also  cotton  was  the  basis.  By  a  contract  signed 
at  Richmond  in  January,  1863,  Erlanger  &  Cie., 
of  Paris,  underwrote  at  seventy-seven  per  cent  of 
their  face  value  Confederate  bonds  to  the  amount 
of  three  million  pounds  sterling.  The  interest  was 
payable  in  specie,  but  the  bonds  were  exchange- 
able at  their  face  value  for  New  Orleans  middling 
cotton  at  sixpence  a  pound.  That  was  little  more 
than  one-fourth  the  price  of  cotton  abroad,  and  the 


1 66   THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

Erlangers  made  a  pretty  penny  by  their  venture ; 
but  the  government,  what  with  the  agent's  profits 
and  commissions,  repurchases  to  affect  the  market, 
and  interest  paid,  got  little  more  than  half  the  face 
value  of  the  loan  according  to  Professor  Smith's 
calculation,  less  than  half  according  to  the  more 
careful  calculation  of  Professor  Schwab.  However, 
its  receipts  were  in  specie,  and  far  larger  in  pro- 
portion than  it  realized  on  any  but  the  earliest  of 
its  domestic  loans.  The  single  foreign  loan  was 
clumsily  managed,  and  it  seems  clear  that  a  larger 
one  should  have  been  tried.  Possibly,  the  hope 
of  recognition  restrained  the  government  in  the 
matter,  but  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the 
enlisting  of  great  financial  interests  in  England 
and  France  would  have  been  of  more  help  toward 
that  end  than  the  object  lesson  of  a  few  securities 
held  up  to  prices  in  the  European  market  which 
compared  favorably  with  the  quotations  of  United 
States  bonds.  However,  barring  some  good  for- 
tune which  might  have  raised  up  for  the  Confed- 
eracy a  European  ally  to  play  a  part  comparable 
to  France's  in  the  American  Revolution,  the 
shrewdest  diplomacy  and  financiering  would  not 
have  relieved  it  of  the  necessity  to  demand  the 
heaviest  sacrifices  of  its  devoted  people.  It  could 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY  167 

not  have  drawn  from  without,  either  by  trade  or 
by  borrowing,  more  than  a  small  part  of  what 
it  needed  to  keep  its  armies  in  the  field. 

The  devotion  of  the  Southerners  was  in  fact 
immeasurable ;  the  economic  agree  with  the  mili- 
tary historians  that  their  sacrifices  were  far  greater 
than  any  the  Revolutionary  patriots  made.  The 
first  revenues  of  the  Confederate  government  were 
from  voluntary  loans  of  states  and  free  gifts  of 
individuals.  The  first  requisition  on  the  treas- 
ury was  met  with  the  personal  credit  of  the  Secre- 
tary. In  the  day  of  extreme  need,  women  offered 
the  hair  of  their  heads  to  be  sold  abroad  for  arms. 

A  state  of  war  enabled  the  government  to  get 
revenue  by  other  extraordinary  means  than  gifts 
and  the  loans  of  states.  The  United  States  cus- 
toms receipts  at  Southern  ports  and  the  bullion 
in  the  New  Orleans  mint  were  taken  before  war 
was  declared.  A  circular  issued  in  March,  1861, 
directed  that  all  dues  to  the  United  States  govern- 
ment be  paid  into  the  Confederate  treasury.  A 
law  of  Congress  passed  in  May  provided  that  all 
debts  due  to  citizens  of  the  United  States  should 
likewise  be  paid  into  the  treasury,  and  certificates 
given  in  exchange.  The  Washington  government 
retaliated  with  a  confiscation  act,  and  in  August 


1 68      THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

a  Confederate  act  sequestrated  the  property  of  all 
alien  enemies,  Confederate  and  state  bonds  ex- 
empted, and  set  apart  the  proceeds  to  reimburse 
citizens  whose  property  had  been  taken  by  the 
United  States.  Pettigru,  the  foremost  lawyer  of 
South  Carolina,  attacked  the  law  as  unconstitu- 
tional ;  but  Judge  Magrath,  of  the  Confederate 
District  Court,  held  that  the  power  to  pass  it  was  a 
necessary  attribute  of  such  sovereignty  as  the  Con- 
federate government  possessed  —  a  position  very 
like  that  which  the  United  States  Supreme  Court 
came  to  in  its  last  legal-tender  decision.  Late  in 
1864,  the  property  of  renegades  and  6migr£s  was 
confiscated.  But  the  revenue  from  confiscations 
could  not  have  been  much  above  6  millions,  un- 
less we  include  what  the  states  got  by  like  meas- 
ures. It  has  been  suggested  that  the  entire  debt 
of  the  South  to  the  North  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  which  is  variously  estimated,  —  Professor 
Schwab  does  not  pretend  to  do  more  than  con- 
jecture that  it  was  about  40  millions,  —  should  be 
counted  a  Confederate  asset,  and  the  same  sort  of 
reasoning  would  make  the  stoppage  of  interest  pay- 
ments to  Northerners  on  the  bonds  of  Southern 
states  and  corporations  an  addition  to  the  Southern 
resources.  The  list  of  extraordinary  revenues 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY  169 

should  certainly  include  the  specie  of  the  New  Or- 
leans banks,  which  was  sent  inward  when  the  city 
fell,  and  taken  by  the  government,  nominally  as  a 
deposit.  Nearly  5  millions  were  obtained  that  way. 
There  remained  the  two  ordinary  sources  of 
revenue,  —  taxation,  and  domestic  loans.  But  the 
first  was  curtailed  by  the  blockade  to  such  a 
degree  that  the  Confederate  customs  receipts  may 
best  be  grouped  with  the  receipts  from  gifts  and 
confiscations,  so  trifling  was  the  amount.  One  of 
the  earliest  laws  of  the  provisional  Congress  at 
Montgomery  imposed  a  duty  of  one-half  of  one 
cent  a  pound  on  all  exports  of  cotton,  payable  in 
specie  or  in  the  coupons  of  the  first  issue  of  bonds, 
the  interest  on  which  was  guaranteed  by  the  tax. 
A  month  later,  the  first  tariff  law  was  passed,  with 
a  long  free  list  and  a  rate  of  fifteen  per  cent  on  a 
few  imports :  it  was  thought  advisable  to  put  a 
premium  on  immediate  importations.  A  small 
tonnage  duty  was  for  the  sole  purpose  of  main- 
taining lighthouses.  The  permanent  tariff  passed 
in  May  was  of  necessity  a  purely  revenue  measure, 
for  the  provisional  Constitution,  like  the  permanent 
one  which  followed,  expressly  forbade  protection, 
although  both  instruments  omitted  the  prohibition 
of  export  duties  which  is  in  the  United  States 


I/O      THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

Constitution  —  a  matter  of  surprise  to  any  one 
who  recalls  that  thirty  years  earlier  the  nullifiers 
held  the  "  tariff  of  abominations "  to  be  virtually 
a  tax  on  exports.  The  law  followed  the  Walker 
principle  of  1846,  aiming  to  fix  the  minimum  rates 
which  would  yield  the  maximum  returns,  made 
the  rates  ad  valorem  wherever  practicable,  —  the 
highest  twenty-five  per  cent,  and  the  lowest  five 
per  cent, — and  left  the  free  list  still  long.  For 
the  first  fiscal  year,  the  receipts  from  import  and 
export  duties,  seizures,  and  confiscations,  all  to- 
gether, were  less  than  2\  millions  in  specie. 

So  taxation,  to  be  effective,  must  take  its  most 
direct  and  inquisitorial  form,  harassing  to  the 
taxpayers  and  laborious  to  the  collectors.  That 
the  government  should  have  been  loath  to  adopt 
so  unpopular  a  policy  is  not  surprising ;  but  that 
any  government  so  driven  upon  it  as  that  was 
should  have  delayed  so  long,  and  then  resorted  to 
it  so  timidly  and  tentatively,  is  explicable  only  on 
a  low  estimate  of  the  Confederate  lawmakers  and 
of  the  Southern  public  opinion  which  their  prac- 
tice of  secret  sessions  does  not  seem  to  have 
emboldened  them  to  disregard.  But  the  weakness 
of  the  government  was  more  culpable  than  the 
outcry  of  the  people.  Years  of  prosperity  and 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY  I /I 

peace  under  the  Union  had  wonted  them  to  light 
burdens  of  taxation,  and  they  were  imbued  with 
hostility  to  the  whole  theory  of  a  strong  central 
authority.  They  did,  in  fact,  more  nearly  keep 
pace  with  their  government  in  recognizing  the 
necessity  of  heavy  taxation  than  taxpayers  often 
do.  At  one  time,  a  considerable  body  of  public 
opinion  actually  urged  Congress  on  to  its  duty, 
and  the  clamor  against  the  laws  when  they  were 
passed  was  in  large  part  due  to  the  inequalities 
they  contained. 

In  July,  1861,  Secretary  Memminger  estimated 
at  4600  million  dollars  the  assessable  values  in 
real  estate,  slaves,  and  personal  property,  and 
Congress,  aiming  to  raise  25  millions,  passed  in 
August  a  direct  war  tax  of  one-half  of  one  per 
cent  on  all  property  but  government  bonds 
and  money  on  hand,  making  the  usual  exemp- 
tions. The  assessment,  however,  fell  below  the 
Secretary's  estimate  by  nearly  400  millions,  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact  less  than  one-tenth  of  the 
tax  was  ever  collected  from  the  taxpayers.  It 
was  not  apportioned  among  the  states,  for  the 
provisional  Constitution  made  no  such  require- 
ment ;  but  each  state  was  a  tax  division,  and  could 
obtain  a  rebate  of  ten  per  cent  for  its  citizens  by 


1/2      THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

paying  the  whole  of  their  quota,  less  the  rebate, 
before  the  date  fixed  for  collections.  The  result 
was  that  all  but  one  or  two  states  borrowed  the 
money.  The  total  receipts  from  the  "  tax,"  some 
of  them  not  covered  in  for  a  year  or  more,  were 
less  than  20  millions  in  a  currency  already  much 
depreciated.  The  rate  was  too  low,  and  the  law 
ill-framed.  The  taxes  which  the  Confederacy  im- 
posed during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war  were 
absurdly  light  in  comparison  with  those  ordinarily 
imposed  by  civilized  states  in  time  of  peace. 

The  serious  resort  to  taxation  came  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  third  year,  and  it  was  all  the  more 
unwelcome  because  it  was  belated.  In  April, 
1863,  the  Congress  passed  a  property  tax  of  eight 
per  cent,  license  taxes  on  various  occupations,  a 
graded  income  tax,  a  tax  of  ten  per  cent  on  the 
profits  from  sales  of  food-stuffs  and  a  few  other 
commodities,  and  a  tax  in  kind,  or  tithe,  on  the 
products  of  agriculture.  By  this  time,  the  area 
under  control  of  the  government  was  much  dimin- 
ished, and  assessable  values  shrunken  by  many 
millions.  The  currency  was  depreciating  so  fast 
that  it  put  a  great  premium  on  delay  in  payments. 
No  collections  were  made  until  the  end  of  the 
year,  and  by  April,  1864,  but  60  millions  in  cur- 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY  173 

rency,  valued  roughly  at  one-twentieth  of  that 
sum  in  specie,  had  been  covered  into  the  treasury. 
The  next  six  months  brought  42  millions  in  cur- 
rency, or  2  millions  in  specie.  The  receipts  from 
the  tax  in  kind  cannot  be  given  in  terms  of 
money.  Officially,  the  proceeds  in  1863  were  es- 
timated at  5  millions  in  currency.  The  next  year, 
there  was  gathered  the  equivalent  of  30  million 
rations.  Professor  Smith  estimates  the  total  re- 
turns from  the  tithe  at  145  millions  in  currency. 
The  trouble  and  expense  of  collection  were  great, 
and  so  was  the  waste.  In  February,  1864,  the  tax 
law  of  1863  was  reenacted  with  higher  rates  on 
property,  credits,  and  profits :  the  Secretary's  es- 
timate of  assessable  values  at  that  time  was  3 
billions.  In  June,  the  rates  were  raised  horizon- 
tally, and  at  the  very  end,  in  March,  1865,  extreme 
rates  were  imposed. 

The  law  was  unconstitutional,  for  the  permanent 
Constitution  required  all  direct  taxes  to  be  appor- 
tioned among  the  states  according  to  their  repre- 
sentation in  Congress.  Certain  states  held  it  an 
infringement  of  their  rights,  more  particularly  be- 
cause it  taxed  property  which  they  had  exempted 
and  banks  in  which  they  had  an  interest.  The 
tithe  was  the  feature  most  bitterly  resented,  as 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

inquisitorial,  as  imposing  a  special  burden  on  agri- 
culture, already  depressed  by  the  loss  of  its  mar- 
kets, and  because  the  farmers  could  not  profit  by 
delay  in  payments,  as  everybody  else  could,  but 
would  lose  by  it  instead.  There  were  other  ine- 
qualities. But  the  law,  onerous  as  it  was,  did 
not  bring  the  tax  receipts  up  to  a  high  place  in 
the  schedule  of  government  revenues.  The  last 
full  statement  available,  of  October  i,  1864,  for 
the  six  months  preceding,  shows  that  less  than 
twelve  per  cent  of  the  total  receipts  came  from 
that  source.  The  failure  to  tax  promptly,  to  tax 
skilfully  and  equally,  and  to  tax  heavily,  was  a 
damning  fault  and  weakness  of  the  government. 
The  rival  government  at  Washington  fell  into  the 
same  error,  but  recovered  from  it  in  time. 

The  error  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  inade- 
quate tax  receipts  alone,  but  by  the  extent  to 
which  it  impaired  and  vitiated  the  final  device  of 
borrowing.  Had  the  government  adhered  to  the 
sound  policy  it  began  with  when  it  passed  an  ex- 
port tax,  payable  in  specie,  to  guarantee  the  inter- 
est on  its  first  loan,  it  might  have  avoided  —  at 
least  so  long  as  by  hook  or  by  crook,  at  whatever 
cost,  specie  could  be  obtained  —  its  unenviable 
preeminence  among  all  modern  governments  as 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY     175 

an  exponent  of  forced  loans  and  redundant  note 
issues.  Southern  civilization,  with  sins  enough 
to  answer  for  already,  might  have  escaped  the 
crowning  indictment  that  after  centuries  of  money 
exchanges  it  brought  Anglo-Saxon  Americans  back 
to  plain  barter  in  their  market-places. 

The  first  loan  of  15  millions  was  negotiated  on 
a  specie  basis,  and  it  was  successful.  The  South- 
ern banks,  holding  perhaps  25  millions  of  specie, 
agreed  to  redeem  in  specie  such  of  their  notes  as 
should  be  paid  for  the  bonds,  and  for  a  year  or 
two  the  interest,  guaranteed  by  the  export  tax, 
was  paid  in  specie.  The  second  issue,  in  May, 
of  50  millions,  was  accompanied  with  no  such 
guarantee  of  interest  payments.  Moreover,  treas- 
ury notes  to  the  amount  of  20  millions  were  au- 
thorized by  the  same  act,  to  be  issued  in  lieu  of 
bonds,  and  to  be  interchangeable  with  them. 
The  loan  was  increased  to  100  millions  in  August, 
and  in  December  to  150  millions.  The  bonds 
were  offered  for  specie,  for  military  stores,  and 
for  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  raw  produce  or 
manufactured  articles,  so  that  the  issue  became 
largely  a  produce  loan ;  four  hundred  thousand 
bales  of  cotton,  and  tobacco  and  other  farm  prod- 
ucts in  proportion,  were  subscribed.  The  relief  of 


1/6      THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

the  planters  was  an  avowed  object.  Through  this 
policy,  the  government  came  to  number  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  bales  of  cotton,  scattered 
over  the  country,  among  its  assets.  The  receipts 
in  money  from  sales  of  bonds  during  the  first  year 
were  stated  to  be  31  millions,  or  twenty-two  per 
cent  of  the  total  receipts. 

The  second  year  saw  a  great  increase  in  the 
number  of  bonds  authorized  to  be  issued,  but  no 
corresponding  increase  in  the  sales.  Of  165  mill- 
ions authorized  in  April,  3^  millions  were  placed. 
In  September,  the  Secretary  was  empowered  to 
sell  bonds  without  limit  to  meet  appropriations. 
But  only  nine  per  cent  of  the  total  receipts  of  the 
year  came  from  that  source.  The  third  year,  the 
receipts  from  bonds  rose  to  twenty-two  per  cent 
of  the  total,  and  of  the  1221  millions  of  debt  accu- 
mulated by  January  i,  1864,  omitting  the  foreign 
loan,  298  millions  were  bonded.  But  the  figures 
are  misleading,  for  practically  all  the  bond  sales 
of  the  year,  except  those  handled  by  the  Erlangers, 
were  in  the  nature  of  a  half-compulsory  funding. 
Similarly,  the  bond  sales  of  the  last  year  were 
nearly  all  accomplished  through  the  compulsory 
funding  act  of  February,  1864,  which  amounted 
to  a  repudiation  of  all  treasury  notes  which  should 


THE  RESOURCES   OF  THE   CONFEDERACY      177 

not  be  funded  by  certain  dates.  By  the  same 
act,  six  per  cent  bonds  to  the  amount  of  500  mill- 
ions were  authorized  for  current  expenses,  and 
the  last  full  statement,  of  October  i,  1864,  shows 
that  but  little  over  14  millions  of  these  had  been 
sold.  The  debt  was  then  1371  millions,  and  362 
millions  of  it  were  funded,  but  less  than  half  of 
the  funded  debt  could  be  called  voluntary  loans. 
More  than  half  the  bonds  had  been  sold  by  com- 
pulsion. 

Of  the  enormous  forced  loan  remaining,  178 
millions  were  in  interest-bearing  notes  and  cer- 
tificates, and  831  millions  in  notes  bearing  no  in- 
terest. Beginning  in  March,  1861,  with  an  issue 
of  i  million  of  treasury  notes  bearing  interest, 
following  that  up  in  May  with  20  millions  of  notes 
bearing  no  interest,  the  government  had  from  the 
start  paid  the  great  bulk  of  its  expenses  with  notes 
of  the  one  class  or  the  other.  By  the  end  of  the 
first  year,  105^  millions  had  been  issued  ;  at  the 
end  of  the  second,  the  debt  was  567^  millions,  and 
eighty-two  per  cent  of  it  was  in  notes.  In  1863, 
new  issues  more  than  counterbalanced  the  reduction 
accomplished  by  funding,  and  even  the  repudiation 
act  of  February,  1864,  only  temporarily  dimin- 
ished the  rate  of  increase.  That  law  required 


178       THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

the  holders  of  old  notes,  some  of  them  fundable 
in  eight  per  cent  bonds,  either  to  fund  them  in 
four  per  cent  bonds  or  exchange  them  for  new 
notes  at  the  rate  of  three  for  two ;  otherwise,  they 
were  to  be  taxed  out  of  existence.  Perhaps  300 
millions  were  either  funded  or  exchanged,  but  the 
remainder,  though  repudiated,  continued  to  cir- 
culate. After  October,  1864,  current  expenses 
were  met  mainly  with  treasury  warrants  and  cer- 
tificates of  indebtedness,  so  that  an  immense  float- 
ing debt  was  piled  up ;  but  the  expiring  utterance 
of  the  Confederate  Congress  was  another  issue  of 
notes,  the  bill  passing  over  the  veto  of  President 
Davis. 

We  may  admit  that  the  government  could  not 
have  avoided  forced  loans  and  an  inflated  cur- 
rency, even  if  it  had  made  the  wisest  use  of  all 
other  means  of  getting  revenue.  Ordinary  stand- 
ards of  public  finance  cannot  justly  be  applied  to 
it.  But  it  is  hard  to  see  how  it  could  have  chosen 
a  worse  policy  than  it  did.  To  issue  notes  in 
quantities  vastly  beyond  the  demands  of  business, 
to  repudiate  them,  and  then  to  go  on  issuing  more, 
must  be  near  the  height  of  bad  finance.  To  show 
the  effects  of  the  policy  completely,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  examine  every  department  of  indus- 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY      179 

try  and  trade  —  a  study  of  great  interest  to  econ- 
omists. Here,  it  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that  the 
redundant  paper  currency  was  the  main  cause  of 
the  government's  failure  to  get  the  most  possible 
out  of  the  material  resources  and  productive  in- 
dustries of  the  South. 

It  was  intended  that  the  notes  should  take  the 
place  of  the  old  United  States  currency.  The 
banks,  the  state  governments,  and  the  people 
readily  cooperated  with  the  government,  and  the 
New  Orleans  banks,  which  had  been  so  well  man- 
aged that  they  continued  specie  payments  until 
September,  1861,  suspended  in  order  to  accept 
the  notes.  But  long  before  the  end  of  the  second 
year  the  circulation  of  these  exceeded  by  far  the 
circulation  of  United  States  money  in  the  South  in 
1860,  and  they  rapidly  depreciated.  Acts  to  make 
them  a  legal  tender  were  several  times  proposed, 
but  none  was  passed.  Funding  acts  were  passed, 
but  failed  to  attain  their  object.  No  scheme  like 
Chase's  system  of  national  banks  would  have  been 
practicable  with  the  Confederate  bonds  as  a  basis, 
even  if  the  particularistic  public  sentiment  could 
have  been  overcome  to  the  extent  of  getting  the 
necessary  law  through  the  Congress.  There  was 
no  way  to  regulate  the  'currency  so  long  as  the 


ISO      THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

notes  were  issued  to  pay  current  expenses.  There 
was  no  check  on  the  states,  which  began  to  issue 
notes  before  the  government.  Cities,  banks,  cor- 
porations, business  firms,  individuals,  swelled  the 
circulation  with  their  promises  to  pay ;  counter- 
feiters flourished.  The  currency  was  redundant, 
unregulated,  various,  fluctuating  ;  and  all  the  time, 
as  always  when  there  is  too  much  money,  the  mass 
of  the  people  were  clamoring  for  more  and  more, 
because  prices  were  rising  higher  and  higher. 

By  the  end  of  1861,  a  gold  dollar  was  worth 
$1.20  in  currency;  by  the  end  of  1862,  it  was 
worth  $3.00  in  currency ;  a  year  later,  $20.00 ; 
before  the  final  collapse,  $61.00  in  paper  was  paid 
for  one  dollar  in  gold.  Prices  in  general,  with  a 
few  notable  exceptions,  as  of  cotton  and  tobacco, 
rose  faster  and  higher  than  the  price  of  gold. 
"Before  the  war,"  says  a  wag  in  Eggleston's  "  Rec- 
ollections," "  I  went  to  market  with  the  money  in 
my  pocket,  and  brought  back  my  purchases  in  a 
basket ;  now  I  take  the  money  in  the  basket,  and 
bring  the  things  home  in  my  pocket."  Of  course, 
the  waning  of  the  hope  of  victory  would  have 
depreciated  any  sort  of  Confederate  obligations, 
but  victory  itself  would  not  have  made  that  un- 
soundness  sound. 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY     l8l 

The  incitement  to  speculation  was  irresistible. 
The  general  and  correct  opinion  was  that  it  was 
better  to  hold  any  other  sort  of  property  than 
money.  It  was  because  notes,  whether  they  bore 
interest  or  not,  could  be  used  in  ordinary  transac- 
tions, and  for  speculation,  that  they  were  preferred 
to  bonds.  Long-time  contracts  on  a  money  basis 
were  sure  to  prove  inequitable.  Salaries  and 
wages  were  constantly  shrinking.  The  disposition 
to  economize  and  be  frugal,  in  which  the  people  had 
entered  upon  their  time  of  trial,  was  followed  by  a 
reckless  extravagance  of  the  lessening  little  they 
had.  Business  was  deranged,  industry  strangled. 
Simple-minded  patriots  laid  the  blame  on  the  spec- 
ulators, and  there  arose  once  more  the  growl 
against  the  Jews,  old  as  history,  heard  whenever 
Gentiles  get  into  trouble  over  money. 

The  government  saw  production  curtailed  and 
found  the  producers  less  and  less  minded  to  sell. 
It  was  driven  to  impressment  and  arbitrary  fixa- 
tion of  prices.  In  March,  1863,  it  set  up  boards 
of  assessment,  and  from  that  time  continued  to 
force  men  to  sell,  at  prices  below  those  of  the  open 
market,  for  money  sure  to  depreciate,  commodities 
which  they  did  not  wish  to  sell  at  all.  One  result 
was  to  discourage  industry  still  further.  Another 


1 82   THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

was  waste  ;  for  produce,  seized  wherever  found  and 
in  whatever  condition,  often  rotted  or  was  stolen  or 
lost  before  it  reached  the  armies.  A  third  was 
discontent  among  the  people  and  dangerous  con- 
flicts with  states.  A  Virginia  state  court  granted 
an  injunction  to  restrain  a  Confederate  official 
from  impressing  flour.  Governor  Brown,  of 
Georgia,  protested  violently  against  the  law,  and 
the  Georgia  Supreme  Court  pronounced  it  uncon- 
stitutional. The  feeling  against  it  was  particularly 
strong  in  North  Carolina.  Everywhere  there 
was  friction  in  enforcing  it. 

In  general,  every  strong  measure  of  the  govern- 
ment provoked  resistance.  North  Carolina  and 
Georgia  were  the  principal  centres  of  opposition, 
and  their  governors,  Vance  and  Brown,  the  most 
persistent  champions  of  extreme  state  rights  theo- 
ries. Robert  Toombs,  who  had  been  in  the 
Cabinet,  and  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  the  Vice- 
President,  spoke  freely  on  that  side.  The  acts 
empowering  the  President  to  suspend  the  writ  of 
habeas  corptis,  and  the  various  conscription  acts,  as 
they  extended  the  age  limits  and  narrowed  the 
exemptions,  with  the  impressment  law,  were  the 
measures  most  stoutly  resisted.  Brown  flatly 
refused  to  let  a  conscription  act  be  enforced  in 


THE  RESOURCES  OP   THE   CONFEDERACY     183 

Georgia.  North  Carolina  courts  discharged  con- 
scripts who  had  furnished  substitutes,  and  issued 
writs  of  habeas  corpus  in  a  region  where  martial 
law  had  been  declared.  Other  measures  resisted 
were  the  calling  out  of  the  state  militia,  —  a  bone 
of  contention  under  the  old  government  as  far 
back  as  the  War  of  1812  ;  attempts  at  regulating 
interstate  commerce  ;  the  appointing  of  non-resi- 
dents to  federal  offices  in  various  states ;  the  set- 
ting up  of  government  distilleries  contrary  to  state 
laws ;  the  taxing  of  state  bonds  ;  and  the  effort  of 
the  government  to  share  itself,  and  to  prevent  the 
states  from  sharing,  in  the  profits  of  blockade- 
running.  Before  the  end,  the  opponents  of  the 
government  were  uniting  in  a  party,  strongest  in 
North  Carolina,  which  avowed  its  desire  for 
peace,  and  asserted  the  right,  though  it  did  not 
advocate  the  policy,  of  secession  from  the  Con- 
federacy. 

For  these  troubles  of  the  government  the  Con- 
federate Constitution  must  be  held  in  part  respon- 
sible. No  government  in  such  straits  could  have 
refrained  from  arbitrary  measures,  and  the  Confed- 
erate government  could  not  be  arbitrary,  it  could 
not  always  be  trenchant  and  effective,  without 
being  unconstitutional.  Most  of  the  difficulties, 


1 84      THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY 

however,  would  have  been  encountered  if  the  Con- 
stitution had  been  a  word-for-word  copy  —  as  it  was 
in  most  of  its  paragraphs  —  of  the  United  States 
Constitution.  The  variations  from  that  model  were 
not  all  of  a  nature  to  weaken  the  central  authority. 
The  executive  was  strengthened.  The  President's 
term  was  lengthened  to  six  years.  He  could  re- 
move the  principal  officers  of  the  departments,  and 
all  officials  of  the  diplomatic  service,  at  his  pleas- 
ure. He  could  veto  specific  items  of  an  appropri- 
ation bill ;  and  to  this  power  the  Congress,  without 
warrant  from  the  Constitution,  added  the  power  to 
transfer  appropriations  from  one  department  to 
another.  The  power  of  the  legislature  was  limited 
by  requiring  a  two-thirds  majority  in  both  houses 
for  appropriations  not  based  on  department  esti- 
mates and  recommended  by  the  President,  by  pro- 
hibiting extra  compensation  to  public  servants, 
and  by  prohibiting  protection.  The  sovereignty 
of  the  states  was  expressly  affirmed,  and  slavery 
guarded  from  all  interference,  but  public  opinion 
would  have  made  good  these  provisions  if  they 
had  been  left  out.  The  Supreme  Court,  though 
provided  for,  was  never  constituted,  and  no  doubt 
the  government  was  the  weaker  for  want  of  it ; 
but  that,  too,  was  the  fault  of  public  opinion. 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY   185 

The  assertion  that  the  Confederacy  could  not 
have  held  together  in  peace  is  insufficiently  sus- 
tained if  it  rests  on  the  differences  between  the 
Confederate  Constitution  and  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  Stronger  and  more  cen- 
tralized governments  would  have  been  better  for 
the  emergency  on  both  sides,  but  the  form  which 
the  Confederate  government  took  was  the  only 
form  it  could  have  taken,  and  the  only  form  it 
could  have  retained  in  peace.  What  was  in  effect 
a  protest  against  the  tendency  of  the  old  Union 
to  become  a  true  nation  could  not  have  bodied 
itself  forth  in  a  compact  and  hardy  nationality. 
Unimportant  as  students  know  the  merits  of  a 
written  instrument  of  government  to  be  when  they 
do  not  accord  with  material  conditions  and  the 
character  of  the  civilization  to  be  expressed,  the 
faults  of  the  written  instrument  are  equally  un- 
important in  so  far  as  they  are  merely  departures 
from  a  standard  which  the  people  cannot  or  will 
not  live  up  to. 

To  follow  the  inner  workings  of  the  Confeder- 
acy, as  we  are  now  enabled  to  do,  will  supply  po- 
litical scientists  and  public  men  with  striking 
instances  of  the  effects  of  defying  economic  laws 
and  disobeying  the  rules  of  sound  finance.  It 


1 86   THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

will  reveal  more  clearly  than  ever  the  industrial 
backwardness  of  the  South,  and  emphasize  that 
as  the  most  serious  of  its  disadvantages  in  the 
struggle.  It  will  credit  President  Davis  and  his 
advisers,  and  many  other  civil  servants  of  the  Con- 
federacy, with  the  utmost  zeal  and  much  intelli- 
gence, but  none  of  them  with  great  practical  and 
constructive  statesmanship.  It  will  show  the 
Congress  at  Richmond  to  have  been  a  weak  and 
undistinguished  legislature.  It  will  confirm  com- 
pletely our  feeling  that  the  armies  of  the  South 
were  finer  far  than  anything  they  defended,  —  that 
the  wonderful  gray  shell  was  of  greater  worth  than 
all  it  held.  To  our  main  inquiry,  the  answer  is 
that  the  failure  of  the  Southerners  to  win  their 
independence,  clearly  as  it  should  have  been  fore- 
seen, was,  in  quite  definite  ways,  immediately 
attributable  to  faults  and  errors. 

But  to  dwell  on  these  faults  and  errors,  to  make 
our  study  wholly  common-sense  and  scientific,  may 
easily  mislead  us.  It  may  lead  us  to  neglect  the 
strength,  while  we  search  out  the  weakness,  of  the 
South.  It  may  lead  us  away  from  the  moving 
spectacle  of  a  resolute  and  devoted  people,  hard 
beset  by  a  stronger  adversary,  and  struggling  with 
the  defects  of  its  own  civilization,  which  will 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  THE   CONFEDERACY     187 

survive  when  the  economic  and  political  lessons 
to  be  got  from  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Confederacy 
shall  have  lost  their  value. 

That   was   what  Mr.  Henley's  sailor  saw  from 
the  Charleston  wharf. 

"  In  and  out  among  the  cotton, 
Mud,  and  chains,  and  stores,  and  anchors, 
Tramped  a  crew  of  battered  scare-crows, 
Poor  old  Dixie's  bottom  dollars. 

"  Some  had  shoes,  but  all  had  bayonets, 
Them  that  wasn't  bald  was  beardless, 
And  the  drum  was  rolling  Dixie, 
And  they  stepped  to  it  like  men,  sir. 

"  Rags  and  tatters,  belts  and  bayonets, 
On  they  swung,  the  drum  a-rolling, 
Mum  and  sour.     It  looked  like  fighting, 
And  they  meant  it  too,  by  thunder  ! " 


IV.     THE   KU    KLUX    MOVEMENT 


IV 
THE   KU    KLUX   MOVEMENT 

WHOEVER  can  remember  Mr.  Edwin  Booth  in 
the  character  of  Richelieu  will  doubtless  recall 
his  expression  of  the  sudden  change  which 
comes  over  the  melodramatic  cardinal  toward 
the  end  of  the  scene  in  which  his  house  is 
invaded  by  the  conspirators.  While  he  is  igno- 
rant of  his  danger,  his  helplessness  in  the  grasp 
of  his  swarming  enemies,  Richelieu  is  all  maj- 
esty, all  tragedy.  But  when  he  learns  that 
every  avenue  of  escape  is  barred,  that  even 
Huguet  is  false,  that  no  open  force  will  avail 
him,  his  towering  mood  gives  place,  not  indeed 
to  any  cringing  fear,  but  to  subtlety  and  swift 
contriving.  His  eyes  no  longer  blaze,  but 
twinkle ;  his  ringer  is  at  his  chin ;  there  is  a 
semblance  of  a  grin  about  his  lips. 

"  All  ?    Then  the  lion's  skin's  too  short  to-night,  — 
Now  for  the  fox's." 

The  deathbed  stratagem  follows.  The  enemy, 
too  powerful  to  be  resisted,  is  outwitted  and 
befooled. 

191 


IQ2  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

About  the  year  1870,  if  a  Southern  negro 
inquired  of  his  former  master  about  "  dem  Ku 
Kluxes,"  the  response  he  got  was  awe-inspiring. 
If  a  child  of  the  household  made  the  same  inquiry 
of  his  elders,  his  question  was  put  away  with  an 
unsatisfying  answer  and  a  look  like  Mr.  Booth's 
in  the  play.  Had  the  great  cardinal  lived  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  in  the  late  sixties  and 
early  seventies,  I  fancy  he  would  have  found  the  Ku 
Klux  Klan  an  instrument  altogether  to  his  liking. 

The  Southern  child  who,  not  content  with  the 
grin  and  the  evasive  answer  of  his  father  or 
his  elder  brother,  sought  further  enlightenment 
from  his  fast  friends  of  the  kitchen  and  the 
quarters,  heard  such  stories  of  the  mysterious, 
sheeted  brotherhood  as  eclipsed  in  his  young 
fancy  even  the  entrancing  rivalry  of  Brer  Fox 
and  Brer  Rabbit,  and  made  the  journey  back  to 
the  "big  house"  at  bedtime  a  terrifying  experience. 
Uncle  Lewis  would  tell  of  a  shrouded  horseman 
who  rode  silently  up  to  his  door  at  midnight, 
begged  a  drink  of  water,  and  tossed  off  a  whole 
bucketful  at  a  draught.  Uncle  Lewis  was  sure 
he  could  hear  the  water  sizzling  as  it  flowed 
down  that  monstrous  gullet,  and  readily  accepted 
the  stranger's  explanation  that  it  was  the  first 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  193 

drop  he  had  tasted  since  he  was  killed  at  Shi- 
loh.  Aunt  Lou,  coming  home  from  a  visit  to 
a  neighboring  auntie  who  was  ill,  and  cross- 
ing a  lonesome  stretch  near  the  graveyard,  had 
distinctly  seen  a  group  of  horsemen,  motionless 
by  the  roadside,  each  with  his  head  in  his  hand. 
Alec,  a  young  mulatto  who  had  once  displayed 
much  interest  in  politics,  had  been  stopped  on 
his  way  from  a  meeting  of  his  "  s'iety "  by 
a  masked  horseman,  at  least  eight  feet  tall,  who 
insisted  on  shaking  hands ;  and  when  Alec  grasped 
the  hand  outstretched  to  him,  it  was  the  hand 
of  a  skeleton.  Darkies  who,  unlike  Uncle  Lewis 
and  Aunt  Lou  and  Alec,  had  turned  against 
their  own  white  people  and  taken  up  with  the 
carpet-baggers  had  been  more  roughly  handled. 
Somehow,  in  one  such  Southern  boy's  mem- 
ory, there  is  always  a  dim  association  of  these 
Ku  Klux  stories  with  other  stories  of  the  older 
negroes  about  "  patterrollers."  Through  them 
all  there  jingles  the  refrain  :  — 

"  Run,  nigger,  run  ! 
De  patterrollers  ketch  you  !  " 

When  that  boy  went  to  college  and  joined  a 
society  that  had  initiations,  the  mystery  and 
horror  of  the  Ku  Klux  stories  waned ;  but  it 


194  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

was  not  until  he  read  an  account  of  the  patrol 
system  of  slavery  times  that  he  saw  the  connec- 
tion between  Ku  Klux  and  "  patterrollers." 

An  organization  which  could  so  mystify  all 
but  the  grown-up  white  men  of  a  Southern 
household  certainly  lost  none  of  its  mystery  in  the 
confused  accounts  that  filled  the  newspapers  of 
that  day,  and  citizens  of  the  Northern  states, 
already  tired  of  the  everlasting  Southern  question, 
could  not  be  expected  to  understand  it.  Con- 
gress, when  it  undertook  to  enlighten  them,  swelled 
its  records  with  much  impassioned  oratory,  and 
through  its  committees  of  investigation  put  into 
print  first  one  and  then  thirteen  bulky  volumes  of 
reports  and  testimony,  from  which  he  who  lives 
long  enough  to  read  it  all  may  learn  much  that  is 
true  but  not  particularly  important,  much  that 
is  important  if  true,  and  somewhat  that  is  both 
true  and  important.  From  the  mass  of  it  the 
Republican  majority  got  matter  sufficient  to  sus- 
tain one  set  of  conclusions,  leaving  unused  enough 
to  sustain  quite  as  strongly  the  entirely  different 
conclusions  at  which  the  minority  arrived.  There 
remained  much  upon  which  the  novelists,  whether 
humorously  or  sensationally  inclined,  have  drawn 
and  may  continue  to  draw.  Dr.  Conan  Doyle, 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  195 

seeking  to  "  paint  a  horror  skilfully,"  found 
the  Klan  a  good  nerve-racker,  though  it  is 
to  be  hoped  he  did  not  attempt  to  digest  the 
reports.  Voluminous  as  they  are,  they  need  to  be 
supplemented  with  material  of  a  different  sort,  — 
with  such  memories  as  the  child  of  reconstruction 
times  can  summon  up,  with  such  written  memo- 
randa and  cautious  talk  as  can  be  won  from  South- 
erners of  an  older  generation,  with  such  insight  as 
one  can  get  into  Southern  character  and  habits  of 
thought  and  life,  —  before  one  can  begin  to  under- 
stand what  the  Klan  was,  or  how  it  came  into 
existence,  or  what  its  part  was  in  that  great  con- 
fusion officially  styled  the  Reconstruction  of  the 
Southern  states. 

We  may,  I  think,  forbear  argument  and  take 
it  for  granted  that  the  Ku  Klux  movement  was 
an  outcome  of  the  conditions  that  prevailed  in 
the  Southern  states  after  the  war.  It  was  too 
widespread,  too  spontaneous,  too  clearly  a  popular 
movement,  to  be  attributed  to  any  one  man  or  to 
any  conspiracy  of  a  few  men.  Had  it  existed 
only  in  one  corner  of  the  South,  or  drawn  its 
membership  from  a  small  and  sharply  defined 
class,  some  such  explanation  might  serve.  But 
we  know  enough  of  its  extent,  its  composition,  and 


196  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

the  various  forms  it  took,  to  feel  sure  that  it  was 
neither  an  accident  nor  a  mere  scheme.  It  was 
no  man's  contrivance,  but  an  historical  develop- 
ment. As  such,  it  must  be  studied  against  its 
proper  background  of  a  disordered  society  and  a 
bewildered  people. 

It  will  be  necessary  here  to  emphasize  only  one 
feature  of  the  general  misgovernment :  namely,  that 
the  evil  was  by  no  means  confined  to  the  state 
governments,  where  the  bolder  adventurers  and  the 
more  stupendous  blunderers  were  at  work.  The 
itching  and  galling  of  the  yoke  was  worst  in  the 
lesser  communities,  where  government  touches  the 
lives  of  individual  men  and  women  most  intimately. 
The  mismanagement  —  to  use  the  mildest  word  — 
of  the  finances  of  the  states  can  be  shown  in  figures 
with  reasonable  clearness.  The  oppression  of 
counties  and  towns  and  school  districts  is  less 
easily  exhibited,  though  it  was  in  this  way  the 
heaviest  burdens  of  taxation  were  imposed.  The 
total  increase  in  the  indebtedness  of  the  smaller 
political  units  under  carpet-bag  rule  was,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  even  greater  than  in  the  case  of  the 
state  governments  ;  and  the  wrong  was  done  in 
plainer  view  of  the  taxpayer,  by  acts  more  openly 
and  vulgarly  tyrannical.  So  far  as  the  taxpayer's 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  197 

feelings  were  concerned,  piling  up  state  debts  had 
the  effect  which  the  mismanagement  of  a  bank 
has  on  the  stockholders.  The  piling  up  of  county 
and  town  and  school  taxes  was  like  thrusting 
hands  visibly  and  forcibly  into  his  pockets.  It  is 
doubtful,  however,  if  even  the  injury  to  his  for- 
tunes had  so  much  to  do  with  his  state  of  mind 
as  the  countless  humiliations  and  irritations  which 
the  rule  of  the  freedman  and  the  stranger  brought 
upon  him. 

If  the  white  man  of  the  class  long  dominant 
in  the  South  was  permitted  to  vote  at  all,  he 
might  have  literally  to  pass  under  bayonets  to 
reach  the  polls.  He  saw  freedmen  organized  in 
militia  companies,  expensively  armed  and  gayly 
caparisoned  ;  if  he  offered  his  own  military  ser- 
vices, they  were  sure  to  be  rejected.  He  saw 
his  former  slaves  repeating  at  elections,  but  he 
learned  that  he  had  no  right  of  challenge,  and 
that  there  was  no  penalty  fixed  by  law  for  the 
crime.  In  the  local  courts  of  justice,  he  saw  his 
friends  brought  by  an  odious  system  of  informers 
before  judges  who  were  not  merely  incompetent 
or  unfair,  like  many  of  those  who  sat  in  the  higher 
courts,  but  often  grotesquely  ignorant  as  well,  and 
who  intrusted  the  execution  of  their  instruments 


198  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

to  officials  who  in  many  cases  could  not  write  an 
intelligible  return.  In  the  schools  which  he  was 
so  heavily  taxed  to  support,  he  saw  the  children 
of  his  slaves  getting  book-learning,  which  he  him- 
self thought  it  unwise  to  give  them,  from  strangers 
who  would  be  sure  to  train  them  into  discontent 
with  the  only  lot  he  thought  them  fit  for  and 
the  only  sort  of  work  which,  in  the  world  he 
knew,  they  ever  had  a  chance  to  do.  He  saw  the 
Freedmen's  Bureau  deliberately  trying  to  substi- 
tute its  alien  machinery  for  that  patriarchal  rela- 
tion between  white  employers  and  black  workmen 
which  had  seemed  to  him  right  and  inevitable. 
He  saw  the  Loyal  League  urging  freedmen  to  take 
up  those  citizenly  powers  and  duties  which,  when  he 
gave  up  his  sword,  he  had  never  understood  eman- 
cipation to  imply  for  them.  In  every  boisterous 
shout  of  a  drunken  negro  before  his  gate,  in  every 
insolent  glance  from  a  group  of  idle  negroes  on  the 
streets  of  the  county  seat,  in  the  reports  of  fisti- 
cuffs with  little  darkies  which  his  children  brought 
home  from  school,  in  the  noises  of  the  night  and 
the  glare  of  occasional  conflagrations,  he  saw  the 
hand  or  heard  the  harshly  accented  voice  of  the 
stranger  in  the  land. 

It  seems  astounding,   nowadays,  that   the  con- 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  199 

gressional  leaders  in  reconstruction  did  not  fore- 
see that  men  of  their  own  stock,  so  beset,  would 
resist,  and  would  find  some  means  to  make 
their  resistance  effective.  When  they  did  make 
up  their  minds  to  resist,  —  not  collectively,  or 
through  any  representative  body,  but  singly  and 
by  neighborhoods,  —  they  found  an  instrument 
ready  to  their  hands. 

\  When  the  Civil  War  ended,  the  little  town  of 
Pulaski,  Tennessee,  welcomed  home  a  band  of 
young  men  who,  though  they  were  veterans 
of  hard-fought  fields,  were  for  the  most  part  no 
older  than  the  mass  of  college  students.  In  the 
general  poverty,  the  exhaustion,  the  loss  of  heart, 
naturally  prevalent  throughout  the  beaten  South, 
young  men  had  more  leisure  than  was  good  for 
them.  A  Southern  country  town,  even  in  the 
halcyon  days  before  the  war,  was  not  a  particu- 
larly lively  place;  and  Pulaski  in  1866  was  doubt- 
less rather  tame  to  fellows  who  had  seen  Pickett's 
charge  at  Gettysburg  or  galloped  over  the  country 
with  Morgan  and  Wheeler.  A  group  of  them, 
gathered  in  a  law  office  one  evening  in  May, 
1866,  were  discussing  ways  and  means  of  having 
a  livelier  time.  Some  one  suggested  a  club  or 
society.  An  organization  with  no  very  definite 


20O  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

aims  was  effected,  and  at  a  second  meeting,  a 
week  later,  names  were  proposed  and  discussed. 
Some  one  pronounced  the  Greek  word  "  Kuklos," 
meaning  a  circle.  From  "  Kuklos  "  to  "  Ku  Klux" 
was  an  easy  transition,  —  whoever  consults  a 
glossary  of  college  boys'  slang  will  not  find  it 
strange,  —  and  "  Klan  "  followed  "  Ku  Klux  "  as 
naturally  as  "  Dumpty  "  follows  "  Humpty."  That 
the  name  meant  nothing  whatever  was  a  recom- 
mendation ;  and  one  can  fancy  what  sort  of  badi- 
nage would  have  greeted  a  suggestion  that  in  six 
years  a  committee  of  Congress  would  devote  thir- 
teen volumes  to  the  history  of  the  "  movement " 
that  began  in  a  Pulaski  law  office  and  migrated 
later  to  a  deserted  and  half-ruined  house  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  village. 

In  the  beginning,  it  was,  in  fact,  no  "move- 
ment" at  all.  It  was  a  scheme  for  having  fun, 
more  like  a  college  secret  society  than  anything 
else.  Its  members  were  not  "  lewd  fellows  of 
the  baser  sort,"  but  young  men  of  standing  in 
the  community,  who  would  also  have  been  men 
of  wealth  if  there  had  been  no  war.  The  main 
source  of  amusement  was  at  first  the  initiation 
of  new  members,  but  later  the  puzzling  of  out- 
siders. The  only  important  clause  in  the  oath 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  2OI 

of  membership  was  a  promise  of  absolute  secrecy. 
The  disguise  was  a  white  mask,  a  tall  card- 
board hat,  a  gown  or  robe  that  covered  the 
whole  person,  and  also,  when  the  Klan  went 
mounted,  a  cover  for  the  horses'  bodies  and 
some  sort  of  muffling  for  their  feet.  The  chief 
officers  were  a  Grand  Cyclops,  or  president ;  a 
Grand  Magi,  or  vice-president ;  a  Grand  Turk, 
or  marshal;  a  Grand  Exchequer,  or  treasurer; 
and  two  Lictors.  While  the  club  adhered  to  its 
original  aim  and  character,  only  men  of  known 
good  morals  were  admitted.  Born  of  the  same 
impulse  and  conditions  that  had  led  to  the 
"snipe  hunt"  and  other  hazing  devices  of 
Southern  country  towns,  it  was  probably  as  harm- 
less and  as  unimportant  a  piece  of  fooling  as 
any  to  be  found  inside  or  outside  of  colleges. 

The  Klan  was  eminently  successful.  It  got 
all  the  notoriety  it  wished,  and  very  soon  the 
youth  of  neighboring  communities  began  to  organ- 
ize "dens"  of  their  own.  The  mysterious  fea- 
tures of  the  Klan  were  most  impressive,  and  it 
spread  most  rapidly,  in  rural  neighborhoods. 
Probably  it  would  have  become  a  permanent 
secret  society,  not  unlike  the  better  known  of 
the  unserious  secret  orders  which  are  so  common 


202  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

throughout  the  South  to-day,  but  for  the  state 
of  Southern  politics  and  the  progress  of  Recon- 
struction. These  things,  however,  soon  gave  a 
tremendous  importance  to  the  Klan's  inevitable 
discovery  that  mystery  and  fear  have  over  the 
African  mind  twice  the  power  they  have  over 
the  mind  of  a  white  man.  It  was  not  the  first 
instance  in  history  of  a  movement  which  began  in 
mere  purposeless  fooling  ending  in  the  most 
serious  way.  By  the  time  Congress  had  thrown 
aside  the  gentle  and  kindly  plan  of  reconstruc- 
tion which  Lincoln  conceived  and  Johnson  could 
not  carry  out,  the  Ku  Klux  had  taught  the 
white  men  of  Tennessee  and  neighboring  states 
the  power  of  mystery  over  the  credulous  race 
which  Congress  was  bent  on  intrusting  with  the 
most  difficult  tasks  of  citizenship.  When  Southern 
society,  turned  upside  down,  groped  about  for 
some  means  of  righting  itself,  it  grasped  the 
Pulaski  idea. 

As  it  happened,  Tennessee,  the  original  home  of 
the  Klan,  was  the  very  state  in  which  reconstruc- 
tion began  earliest ;  and  though  the  course  of  events 
there  was  somewhat  different  from  the  experience 
of  the  Cotton  states,  Tennessee  was  also  the  first 
state  to  find  its  social  and  governmental  systems 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  2O3 

upside  down.  It  was  notable  for  its  large  Union- 
ist population.  The  Unionists  were  strongest  in 
the  mountainous  eastern  half  of  the  state,  while 
the  western  half,  dominant  before  the  war,  was 
strongly  secessionist.  The  first  step  in  Recon- 
struction was  to  put  the  east  Tennesseeans  into 
power;  and  the  leader  of  the  east  Tennessee 
Unionists  was  "  Parson  "  Brownlow.  Apart  from 
his  Unionism,  Brownlow  is  generally  conceded 
to  have  been  an  extremely  unfit  man  for  great 
public  responsibilities,  and  when  he  became  gov- 
ernor the  secessionists  had  to  endure  much  the 
same  sort  of  misgovernment  which  in  other 
states  was  attributable  to  carpet-bag  officials. 
By  the  time  it  was  a  year  old,  the  Klan  had 
gradually  developed  into  a  society  of  regula- 
tors, using  its  peculiar  devices  and  its  acciden- 
tally discovered  power  chiefly  to  repress  the 
lawlessness  into  which  white  men  of  Brownlow's 
following  were  sometimes  led  by  their  long- 
nourished  grudge  against  their  former  rulers, 
and  into  which  freedmen  fell  so  inevitably  that 
no  fair-minded  historian  can  mete  out  to  them 
a  hard  measure  of  censure  for  it.  In  the  Union 
League  the  Klan  found  its  natural  enemy;  and 
it  is  quite  probably  true  that,  during  the  early 


2O4  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT     \\ 

period  of  their  rivalry  for  control,  more  inexcus- 
able violence  proceeded  from  the  League  than 
from  the  Klan. 

However,  a  survivor  and  historian  of  the 
Klan  does  not  deny  that  even  thus  early  the 
abuses  inseparable  from  secrecy  existed  in 
the  order.  To  suppress  them,  and  to  adapt  the 
order  to  its  new  and  serious  work,  a  convention 
was  held  at  Nashville  early  in  1867.  The  Klan, 
up  to  that  time  bound  together  only  by  a  gen- 
eral deference  to  the  Grand  Cyclops  of  the 
Pulaski  "Den,"  was  organized  into  the  "Invis- 
ible Empire  of  the  South,"]  ruled  by  a  Grand 
Wizard  of  the  whole  Empire,  a  Grand  Dragon 
of  each  Realm,  or  state,  a  Grand  Titan  of  each 
Dominion  (Province),  or  county,  a  Grand  Cyclops 
of  each  Den,  and  staff  officers  <  with  names 

A     i    lu    \    C 

equally  terrifying. ,  The  objects  of  the  Klan, 
now  that  it  had  serious  objects,  were  defined. 
They  were;  tjo  protect  the  people  from  indignities 
and  wrongs;  to  succor  the  suffering,  particularly 
the  families  of  dead  Confederate  soldiers;  to 
defend  "the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  all  laws  passed  in  conformity  thereto,"  and 
of  the  states  also ;  and  to  aid  in  executing  all 
constitutional  laws,  and  protect  the  people  from 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  2O5 

unlawful  seizures  and  from  trial  otherwise  than 
by  jury.  Acts  of  the  Brownlow  legislature  re- 
viving the  alien  and  sedition  laws  were  par- 
ticularly aimed  at. 

From  this  time,  the  Klan  put  itself  more 
clearly  in  evidence,  generally  adhering  to  its 
original  devices  of  mystery  and  silence,  but  too 
often  yielding  to  the  temptation  to  add  to  these 
violence.  On  the  night  of  July  4,  by  well- 
heralded  parades,  it  exhibited  itself  throughout 
Tennessee,  and  perhaps  in  other  states,  more 
impressively  than  ever  before.  At  Pulaski,  some 
four  hundred  disguised  horsemen  marched  and 
countermarched  silently  through  the  streets 
before  thousands  of  spectators,  and  not  a  single 
disguise  was  penetrated.  The  effect  of  mystery 
even  on  intelligent  minds  was  well  illustrated  in 
the  estimate,  made  by  "reputable  citizens,"  that 
the  number  was  not  less  than  three  thousand. 
Members  who  lived  in  the  town  averted  suspi- 
cion from  themselves  by  appearing  undisguised 
among  the  spectators.  A  gentleman  who  prided 
himself  on  knowing  every  horse  in  the  county 
attempted  to  identify  one  by  lifting  its  robe, 
only  to  discover  that  the  animal  and  the  saddle 
were  his  own! 


2O6  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

The  remaining  facts  in  the  history  of  the 
Ku  Klux  proper  need  not  be  told  at  length. 
The  effectiveness  of  the  order  was  shown  wher- 
ever, by  its  original  methods,  it  exerted  itself  to 
quiet  disturbed  communities.  Wherever  freedmen 
grew  unruly,  disguised  horsemen  appeared  by 
night,  and  thereafter  the  darkies  of  the  neigh- 
borhood inclined  to  stay  under  cover  after  day- 
light failed.  But  the  order  had  grown  too  large, 
it  was  too  widespread,  the  central  authority  was 
too  remote  from  the  local  "dens,"  and  the  gen- 
eral scheme  was  too  easily  grasped  and  copied. 
It  was  too  hard  to  keep  out  such  men  as 
would  incline  to  use  violence,  or  to  cover 
with  the  mantle  of  secrecy  enterprises  of  a 
doubtful  or  even  criminal  cast.  In  Tennessee, 
the  Brownlow  government  was  bitterly  hostile, 
and  in  September,  1868,  the  legislature  passed  a 
statute,  aimed  entirely  at  the  Ku  Klux,  which 
went  beyond  the  later  congressional  statutes  in 
the  penalties  it  prescribed  for  every  act  that 
could  possibly  imply  complicity  in  the  "con- 
spiracy," and  in  the  extraordinary  powers  it  con- 
ferred upon  officers  and  all  others  who  should 
aid  in  detecting  or  arresting  Ku  Klux.  The 
members  of  the  order  were  practically  outlawed, 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  2O/ 

and  felt  themselves  justified  in  resorting  to 
measures  of  self-defence  which  the  central 
officers  could  not  approve.  In  February,  1869, 
Governor  Brownlow  proclaimed  martial  law  in 
several  Tennessee  counties.  His  term  of  office 
expired  the  next  day.  The  growing  evils 
within  the  order,  as  well  as  the  dangers  which 
threatened  it,  doubtless  made  the  wiser  heads 
of  the  Klan  readier  to  conclude  that  with  the 
repeal  of  the  alien  and  sedition  laws,  and 
Brownlow's  departure  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  its  work  in  Tennessee  was  done.  So,  a 
few  weeks  later,  by  an  order  of  the  Grand 
Wizard,  the  Klan  was  formally  disbanded,  not 
only  in  Tennessee,  but  everywhere.  It  is  gen- 
erally understood  that  the  Grand  Wizard  who 
issued  that  order  was  no  less  a  person  than 
Nathan  Bedford  Forrest.  How  many  dens  ever 
received  the  order,  and  how  many  of  those 
that  received  it  also  obeyed  it,  will  never  be 
known,  any  more  than  it  will  be  known  how 
many  dens  there  were,  or  how  many  mem- 
bers. However,  the  early  spring  of  1869  may 
be  taken  as  the  date  when  the  Ku  Klux 
Klan,  which  gave  its  name  and  its  idea  to  the 
secret  movement  which  began  the  undoing  of 


208  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

reconstruction,   ceased   to  exist  as   an   organized 
body. 

But  the  history  of  the  original  Ku  Klux  Klan 
is  only  a  part  —  and  perhaps  not  the  most  im- 
portant part  —  of  the  movement  which  in  the 
North  was  called  the  Ku  Klux  conspiracy,  and 
which  in  the  South  is  to  this  day  regarded,  with 
a  truer  sense  of  its  historical  importance,  what- 
ever one  may  think  of  its  moral  character,  as 
comparable  to  that  secret  movement  by  which, 
under  the  very  noses  of  French  garrisons,  Stein 
and  Scharnhorst  organized  the  great  German 
struggle  for  liberty.  Of  the  disguised  bands 
which  appeared  and  disappeared  throughout  the 
South  so  long  as  the  carpet-baggers  controlled 
the  state  governments,  it  is  probable  that  not 
one-half  were  veritable  Ku  Klux.  Some  were 
members  of  other  orders,  founded  in  imitation 
of  the  Ku  Klux,  and  using  similar  methods. 
Others  were  probably  neighborhood  affairs  only. 
Yet  others  were  simply  bands  of  ruffians  who  oper- 
ated in  the  night-time  and  availed  themselves 
of  Ku  Klux  methods  to  attain  personal  ends 
which,  whether  criminal  or  not,  were  not  approved 
by  the  leaders  in  the  Ku  Klux  and  other  similar 
organizations.  How  large  a  proportion  of  the 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  2OQ 

violence  and  crime  attributed  to  the  Ku  Klux 
should  rightly  be  attributed  to  these  lawless  bands, 
it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  say.  It  seems  that 
a  number  of  those  taken  in  disguise  proved  to 
be  men  of  such  antecedents,  so  clearly  identified 
with  the  radical  party,  that  they  could  not  pos- 
sibly have  been  members  of  the  Ku  Klux,  the 
Knights  of  the  White  Camellia,  or  any  other  of 
the  orders  whose  raison  d'etre  was  the  revolt 
against  radical  rule.  But  it  is  equally  beyond 
question  that  the  orders  themselves  were  respon- 
sible for  many  indefensible  proceedings. 

The  order  of  the  Knights  of  the  White  Camellia 
was  probably  the  largest  and  most  important  of 
them  all  —  larger  even  than  the  true  Ku  Klux 
Klan.  It  was  founded  at  New  Orleans  late  in 
1867  or  early  in  1868  and  spread  rapidly  over 
the  states  to  the  east  and  west,  from  Texas  to 
the  Carolinas.  A  constitution  adopted  in  June, 
1868,  provided  for  an  elaborate  organization  by 
states,  counties,  and  smaller  communities,  the 
affairs  of  the  whole  order  to  be  committed  to  a 
supreme  council  at  New  Orleans.  The  recollec- 
tion of  members,  however,  is  to  the  effect  that 
very  little  authority  was  really  exercised  by  the 
supreme  council  or  even  by  the  state  councils, 


2IO  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

that  the  county  organizations  were  reasonably 
well  maintained,  but  th-it  in  most  respects  each 
circle  acted  independently.  The  constitution  and 
the  oath  and  ceremonial  of  initiation  commit  the 
order  to  a  very  clear  and  decided  stand  on 
the  chief  question  of  the  day.  Only  white  men 
eighteen  years  of  age  or  older  were  admitted, 
and  the  initiate  promised  not  merely  to  be  secret 
and  obedient,  but  "to  maintain  and  defend  the 
social  and  political  superiority  of  the  white  race  on 
this  continent."  The  charge  or  lecture  to  the 
initiate  set  forth  historical  evidences  of  the  supe- 
riority of  the  white  race,  made  an  argument  for 
white  supremacy,  and  painted  the  horrors  of 
miscegenation.  It  enjoined  fairness  to  negroes, 
and  the  concession  to  them  of  "the  fullest 
measure  of  those  rights  which  we  recognize  as 
theirs."  The  association,  so  the  charge  explained, 
was  not  a  political  party,  and  had  no  connection 
with  any.  The  constitution,  moreover,  restrained 
the  order  from  nominating  or  supporting  candi- 
dates for  office. 

The  "Pale  Faces,"  the  "Constitutional  Union 
Guards,"  the  "White  Brotherhood,"  were  other 
names  borne  by  bands  of  men  who  did  Ku  Klux 
work.  The  majority  of  the  congressional  com- 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  211 

mittee  somehow  got  the  notion  that  these  were 
the  real  names,  at  different  periods,  of  the  one 
order  which  pervaded  the  entire  South,  and  that  . 
"  Ku  Klux "  was  a  name  foisted  on  the  public  { 
to  the  end  that  a  member,  when  put  upon  the 
witness  stand  in  a  law  court,  might  deny  all 
knowledge  of  the  organization.  But  the  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  the  true  Ku  Klux  Klan,  of 
its  priority  to  all  similar  organizations  of  any 
importance,  and  of  the  existence  of  other  orders 
with  different  names,  is  now  too  strong  to  permit 
of  any  doubt.  The  comparative  strength  of  the 
various  associations ;  the  connection,  if  any  there 
was,  between  them ;  the  character  of  their  mem- 
bership ;  the  differences  in  their  aims  and  methods  ; 
— on  these  things  it  is  not  probable  that  any  clear 
light  will  ever  be  thrown.  Surviving  members 
are  themselves  somewhat  hazy  on  such  questions. 
And  indeed  it  is  not  of  the  first  importance  that 
they  should  be  answered ;  for  we  have  enough 
to  show  how  the  Ku  Klux  idea  worked  itself  out, 
and  with  what  results. 

The  working  of  the  plan  is  exhibited,  more 
authoritatively  than  I  could  portray  it,  in  the 
memoranda  of  a  gentle  and  kindly  man,  albeit 
a  resolute  wearer  of  a  Confederate  button,  who, 


212  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

thirty  years  ago,  was  the  absolute  chief  of  the 
Knights  of  the  White  Camellia  in  a  certain  county 
in  the  heart  of  the  Black  Belt  Speaking  of  the 
county  organization  merely,  he  says :  — 

"The  authority  of  the  commander  (this  office 
I  held)  was  absolute.  All  were  sworn  to  obey 
his  orders.  There  was  an  inner  circle  in  each 
circle,  to  which  was  committed  any  particular 
work:  its  movements  were  not  known  to  other 
members  of  the  order.  This  was  necessary, 
because,  in  our  neighborhood,  almost  every  South- 
ern man  was  a  member.  At  meetings  of  the 
full  circle  there  was  but  little  consideration  as 
to  work.  The  topic  generally  was  law  and  order, 
and  the  necessity  for  organization.  In  fact, 
almost  every  meeting  might  have  been  public, 
so  far  as  the  discussions  were  concerned. 

"  For  the  methods  employed :  in  some  cases 
they  were  severe,  even  extreme,  but  I  believe 
they  were  necessary,  although  there  was  much 
wrong  done  when  commanders  were  not  the  right 
men.  There  was  too  good  an  opportunity  for 
individuals  to  take  vengeance  for  personal  griev- 
ances. A  man,  black  or  white,  found  dead  in 
the  road  would  furnish  undisputed  evidence  that 
the  Ku  Klux  Klan  had  been  abroad.  The  officers 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  213 

of  the  law,  even  judges,  were  members;  a  jury 
could  not  be  drawn  without  a  majority  of  our 
men.  In  this  county,  no  act  of  violence  was 
committed  by  our  circle.  We  operated  on  the 
terror  inspired  by  the  knowledge  that  we  were 
organized.  The  carpet-baggers  lived  in  constant 
dread  of  a  visit,  and  were  in  great  measure  con- 
trolled through  their  fears.  At  one  time,  if  one  of 
our  people  threatened  or  abused  a  carpet-bagger, 
his  house  or  stable  would  be  fired  that  night.1  .  .  . 
This  occurred  so  often  that  it  was  impossible  to 
separate  the  two  events.  Word  was  accordingly 
sent  to  a  prominent  carpet-bagger  that  if  the 
thing  happened  again  we  would  take  him  out 
at  midday  and  hang  him.  There  were  no  more 
fires. 

"  The  negroes  had  meetings  at  some  point  every 
night,  in  obedience  to  the  orders  of  the  carpet- 
baggers, who  kept  them  organized  in  this  way. 
So  long  as  their  meetings  were  orderly,  we  did  not 
interfere ;  but  when  I  got  information  that  they 
were  becoming  disorderly  and  offensive,  I  ordered 
out  a  body  of  horsemen,  who  divided  into  squads 

1  Here  he  refers  to  the  oiling  and  firing  of  the  stables  of  that 
particular  Southern  household  in  which  the  boyish  inquiries  I  have 
referred  to  made  a  beginning  of  the  investigations  on  which  this 
paper  is  based. 


214  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

and  stationed  themselves  where  the  negroes  would  \ 
pass  on  their  way  home.  They  were  permitted  to 
dress  themselves  hi  any  fashion  their  fancies  might  / 
dictate,  but  their  orders  were  positive  not  to  utter  ; 
a  word  or  molest  a  negro  in  any  manner.  I  rarely 
had  to  send  twice  to  the  same  neighborhood.  Oc- 
casionally a  large  body  was  sent/ out  to  ride  about 
all  night,  with  the  same  instructions  as  to  silence. 
While  the  law  against  illegal  voting  had  no 
penalty  for  the  offence  (no  doubt  an  intentional 
omission)  negroes  often  voted  more  than  once  at 
the  same  election.  They  assembled  in  such 
crowds  at  the  polls  that  one  had  almost  to  fight 
one's  way  to  deposit  a  ballot.  A  body  of  our  men 
was  detailed  on  election  day  to  go  early  and  take 
possession,  with  the  usual  order  for  silence.  Few 
negroes  voted  that  day ;  none  twice.  No  violence. 
"  We  put  up  with  carpet-bag  rule  as  long  as  we 
could  stand  it.  Then  a  messenger  was  sent  to 
each  of  them  —  they  were  filling  all  the  county 
offices  —  to  tell  them  we  had  decided  they  must 
leave.  This  was  all  that  was  needed.  They  had 
been  expecting  it,  they  said,  and  they  left  without 
making  any  resistance.  Owing  to  some  local 

circumstances,   the   circle   at was   disbanded 

about  the  time  of  President  Grant's  proclamation, 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  215 

but  we  were  not  influenced  by  it  in  any  degree. 
I  think  there  were  few  cases  of  the  disbandment 
of  circles.  The  necessity  for  their  existence  ex- 
pired with  the  exodus  of  the  carpet-baggers." 

That  was  the  modus  operandi,  under  a  cautious 
and  intelligent  commander,  in  a  neighborhood 
largely  inhabited  by  men  of  birth  and  education. 
As  it  happens,  the  recollections  of  the  commander 
are  corroborated  by  one  of  the  young  men  who 
obeyed  his  orders,  now  attorney-general  of  the 
state,  who  adds  that  the  proportion  of  "tom- 
foolery" to  violence  was  about  1000  to  i.  But 
even  this  straightforward  recital  of  the  successful 
performance  of  an  apparently  commendable  work 
must  make  plain  to  any  thoughtful  reader  the 
danger  inseparable  from  the  power  of  such  an 
organization.  In  communities  less  intelligent,  or 
where  no  such  fit  leader  was  chosen,  the  story  was 
far  different. 

That  violence  was  often  used  cannot  be  denied. 
Negroes  were  often  whipped,  and  so  were  carpet- 
baggers. The  incidents  related  in  such  stories  as 
TourgeVs  "  A  Fool's  Errand  "  all  have  their  coun- 
terparts in  the  testimony  before  congressional  com- 
mittees and  courts  of  law.  In  some  cases,  after 
repeated  warnings,  men  were  dragged  from  their 


2l6  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

beds  and  slain  by  persons  in  disguise,  and  the 
courts  were  unable  to  find  or  to  convict  the  mur- 
derers. Survivors  of  the  orders  affirm  that  such 
work  was  done  in  most  cases  by  persons  not  con- 
nected with  them  or  acting  under  their  authority. 
It  is  impossible  to  prove  or  disprove  their  state- 
ments. When  such  outrages  were  committed,  not 
on  worthless  adventurers,  who  had  no  station  in 
the  Northern  communities  from  which  they  came, 
but  on  cultivated  persons  who  had  gone  South 
from  genuinely  philanthropic  motives,  —  no  matter 
how  unwisely  or  tactlessly  they  went  about  their 
work,  —  the  natural  effect  was  to  horrify  and 
enrage  the  North. 

The  white  teachers  in  the  negro  schools  were 
probably  the  class  which  suffered  most  innocently, 
not  ordinarily  from  violence,  but  from  the  count- 
less other  ways  in  which  Southern  society  made 
them  aware  that  they  were  unwelcome  and  that 
their  mission  was  disapproved.  They  themselves, 
in  too  many  instances,  disregarded  the  boundary 
lines  between  different  social  classes,  as  rigid 
and  cruel  in  democracies  as  anywhere  else. 
Associating  constantly  with  freedmen,  they  could 
not  reasonably  expect  any  kindly  recognition  from 
men  and  women  who,  under  other  conditions, 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  2 1/ 

might  have  been  their  friends.  They  too  often 
not  merely  disregarded,  but  even  criticised  and 
attacked,  those  usages  and  traditions  which 
gave  to  Southern  life  a  charm  and  distinc- 
tion not  elsewhere  found  in  America.  A  wiser 
and  more  candid  study  of  the  conditions  under 
which  their  work  must  be  done,  an  avoidance  of 
all  hostility  to  whatever  they  might  leave  alone 
without  sacrifice  of  principle,  would  perhaps  have 
tempered  the  bitterness  of  Southern  resentment  at 
their  presence.  We  may  also  admit  that  the  sort 
of  education  they  at  first  offered  the  freedmen  was 
useless,  or  worse  than  useless,  —  that  theirs  was  a 
fool's  errand.  But  they  should  never  have  been 
confounded  with  the  creatures  who  came,  not  to 
help  the  negro,  but  to  use  him.  The  worst  work 
the  Ku  Klux  ever  did  was  its  opposition  to  negro 
schools,  and  the  occasional  expulsion  or  even 
violent  handling  of  teachers.  There  were  adven- 
turers in  the  schoolhouses,  and  probably  there 
were  honest  men  in  the  legislatures,  the  courts,  the 
executive  offices ;  but  as  a  class  the  teachers  were 
far  better  than  the  others.  The  failure  to  discrim- 
inate in  their  favor  doubtless  did  more  than  any- 
thing else  to  confirm  the  minds  of  honest  and 
well-meaning  people  of  the  North  in  the  belief 


2l8  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

that  it  was  the  baser  elements  of  Southern  society, 
and  not  its  intelligent  and  responsible  men,  who 
had  set  to  work  to  overthrow  the  carpet-bag 
regime. 

The  Ku  Klux  movement  was  not  entirely  under- 
ground. Sheeted  horsemen  riding  about  in  the 
night-time  were  not  its  only  forces.  Secrecy  and 
silence  were  indeed  its  main  devices,  but  others 
were  employed.  The  life  of  the  carpet-bagger  was 
made  wretched  otherwise  than  by  dragging  him 
from  his  bed  and  flogging  him.  The  scorn  in 
which  he  was  held  was  made  plain  to  him  by 
averted  faces  or  contemptuous  glances  on  the 
street,  by  the  obstacles  he  encountered  in  business, 
by  the  empty  pews  in  his  neighborhood  when  he 
went  to  church.  If  his  children  went  to  school, 
they  were  not  asked  to  join  in  the  play  of  other  chil- 
dren, and  must  perforce  fall  back  upon  the  com- 
panionship of  little  darkies.  He  himself,  if  he  took 
the  Southern  view  of  "  difficulties,!'  and  held  him- 
self ready  to  answer  an  insult  with  a  blow,  was  sure 
to  be  accommodated  whenever  he  felt  belligerent. 
Probably  not  one  in  ten  of  his  neighbors  had  given 
up  the  creed  of  the  duello,  though  its  ceremonial 
was  not  often  observed.  As  for  the  "  scalawag," 
—  the  Southerner  who  went  over  to  the  radicals,  — 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  2IQ 

there  was  reserved  for  him  a  deeper  hatred,  a 
loftier  contempt,  than  even  the  carpet-bagger  got 
for  his  portion.  No  alien  enemy,  however  despic- 
able, is  ever  so  loathed  as  a  renegade. 

But  the  Invisible  Empire,  however  its  sway  was 
exercised,  was  everywhere  a  real  empire.  Wisely 
and  humanely,  or  roughly  and  cruelly  and  crimi- 
nally, the  work  was  done.  The  state  governments, 
under  radical  control,  made  little  headway  with 
their  freedmen's  militia  against  the  silent  represen- 
tatives of  the  white  man's  will  to  rule.  After 
1870,  even  the  blindest  of  the  Reconstruction  lead- 
ers in  Congress  were  made  to  see  that  they  had 
built  their  house  upon  the  sands.  During  the 
whiter  of  1870-71,  Southern  outrages  were  the 
subject  of  congressional  debates  and  presidential 
messages.  In  March,  a  Senate  committee  pre- 
sented majority  and  minority  reports  on  the  result 
of  its  investigations  in  North  Carolina.  The  ma- 
jority found  that  there  was  a  criminal  conspiracy, 
of  a  distinctly  political  nature,  against  the  laws 
and  against  colored  citizens.  The  minority  found 
that  the  misgovernment  and  the  unscrupulous  ex- 
ploiting of  the  Southern  states  by  radical  leaders 
had  provoked  a  natural  resistance  and  led  to  disor- 
der and  violence.  In  April,  the  first  Ku  Klux  bill, 


220  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

"  to  enforce  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,"  was 
passed;  the  President  was  empowered  to  use  the 
troops,  and  even  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  cor- 
PUS.  The  second  Ku  Klux  bill,  "  to  enforce  the  right 
of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote,"  was  passed 
in  May.  In  October,  the  President  issued  his 
proclamation.  Troops  were  freely  employed  wher- 
ever there  was  an  opportunity  to  use  them,  and 
the  writ  was  suspended  in  nine  counties  of  South 
Carolina.  Hundreds  of  men  were  brought  to  trial 
before  United  States  courts  under  the  two  laws, 
and  a  number  were  convicted ;  but  the  leading 
men  in  the  great  orders  were  never  reached. 
Northern  writers  have  expressed  the  opinion  that 
by  the  beginning  of  1872  the  "conspiracy"  was 
overthrown.  Nevertheless,  the  joint  committee 
proceeded  with  its  labors,  and  in  February  pre- 
sented its  great  report  on  The  Condition  of  Affairs 
in  the  Late  Insurrectionary  States.  Majority  and 
minority  differed,  as  before;  but  the  volume  of 
reports  and  the  twelve  volumes  of  testimony  ena- 
bled the  one  side  to  prove  more  conclusively  that 
crimes  had  been  committed  for  political  ends, 
and  the  other  to  set  forth  with  more  convincing 
fulness  the  true  nature  of  carpet-bag  rule.  In 
May,  a  bill  extending  the  President's  extraordinary 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  221 

powers  over  to  the  next  session  of  Congress  passed 
the  Senate,  but  was  lost  in  the  House.  How  much 
the  action  of  Congress  and  the  President  had  to  do 
with  the  disappearance  of  the  Ku  Klux,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say.  But  after  1872  the  Ku  Klux  did,  for 
the  most  part,  disappear  ;  and  so,  in  one  state  after 
another,  did  the  carpet-bagger  and  the  scalawag. 
The  fox's  skin  had  served  its  turn  before  it  was 
cast  aside. 

Such,  in  brief  outline,  was  the  Ku  Klux  con- 
spiracy according  to  the  Northern  view,  the  revolt 
against  tyranny  according  to  the  Southern  view, 
which  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  Reconstruc- 
tion. It  was  the  unexpected  outcome  of  a  situation 
unexampled,  and  not  even  closely  paralleled,  in 
history.  To  many  minds,  it  seemed  to  nullify  the 
war,  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  and  the  con- 
stitutional amendments  which  were  meant  to  seal 
forever  the  victory  of  the  North  over  the  South, 
and  of  liberty  over  slavery.  To  minds  just  as  honest, 
it  seemed  to  reassert  the  great  principles  of  the 
American  Revolution.  The  majority  of  the  con- 
gressional committee  conducted  their  investigation 
after  the  manner  of  prosecuting  attorneys  dealing 
with  ordinary  criminals.  The  minority  felt  them- 
selves bound  to  consider  whether  "  an  indictment 


222  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

against  a  whole  people"  would  lie.  To  the  ma- 
jority, "  Ku  Klux"  meant  simply  outlaws;  the 
minority  thought  that  the  first  Ku  Klux  in  history 
were  the  disguised  men  who,  against  the  law,  threw 
the  tea  overboard  in  Boston  Harbor. 

The  two  views  of  the  movement,  like  the  move- 
ment itself,  and  all  that  led  up  to  it,  are  part  and 
parcel  of  that  division  which  was  marked  by 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  It  was  a  division  of  in- 
stitutions ;  it  was  a  division  of  interests ;  it  was, 
and  is  still,  a  division  of  character  and  habits  of 
thought.  Northern  men  had  one  idea  of  the  strife, 
and  Southern  men  an  entirely  different  idea.  The 
Southerners  did  not  and  could  not  regard  them- 
selves as  rebels  forced  to  be  loyal.  They  knew 
they  were  beaten,  and  they  gave  up  the  fight ;  but 
they  could  not  see  how  they  were  bound  to  coop- 
erate in  any  further  plans  of  their  conquerors. 
President  Lincoln  had  made  it  plain  that  if  the 
Union  arms  prevailed  slavery  must  go,  and  the 
Southerners,  in  their  state  conventions  of  1865,  for- 
mally abolished  it.  Secession  had  been  tried,  and 
had  failed  as  a  policy;  they  declared  that  they 
would  not  try  it  again.  Left  for  a  moment  to 
themselves,  they  set  to  work  on  an  arrangement 
that  would  enable  them  to  use  under  freedom  the 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  22$ 

same  sort  of  labor  they  had  used  under  slavery, 
and  made  a  place  in  the  new  order  for  the  blacks, 
whom  they  could  not  reduce  to  slavery  again,  but 
whom  they  felt  to  be  unfit  for  citizenship.  Then 
Congress  interfered  and  undid  their  work,  and  they 
stood  passive  until  they  could  see  what  the  con- 
gressional scheme  would  be  like.  They  found  it 
bad,  oppressive,  unwise,  impossible.  They  bore  it 
awhile  in  silence.  Then  in  silence  they  made  up 
their  minds  to  resist.  What  form  could  their  re- 
sistance take  ?  It  must  be  revolutionary,  for  they 
had  formally  renounced  the  right  of  secession.  It 
could  not  be  open  war,  for  they  were  powerless  to 
fight.  So  they  made  a  secret  revolution.  Their 
rebellion  could  not  raise  its  head,  so  it  went  under- 
ground. 

If  one  asks  of  the  movement,  "Was  it  neces- 
sary ? "  this  much,  at  least,  may  be  answered :  that 
no  other  plan  of  resistance  would  have  served  so 
well.  If  one  asks,  "Was  it  successful?"  the  an- 
swer is  plain.  No  open  revolt  ever  succeeded 
more  completely.  If  one  asks,  "Was  it  justifia- 
ble ? "  the  "  yes  "  or  "  no  "  is  harder  to  say.  There 
must  be  much  defining  of  terms,  much  patient  sep- 
arating of  the  accidental  from  the  essential,  much 
inquiry  into  motives.  Describe  the  movement 


224  THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT 

broadly  as  a  secret  movement,  operating  by  terror 
and  violence  to  nullify  laws,  and  one  readily  con- 
demns it.  Paint  all  the  conditions,  enter  into  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  the  men  who  lived  under 
them,  look  at  them  through  their  eyes,  suffer  with 
their  angry  pain,  and  one  revolts  as  their  pride 
revolted.  Weigh  the  broad  rule,  which  is  less  a 
"light  to  guide"  than  a  "rod  to  check,"  against 
the  human  impulse,  and  the  balance  trembles. 
One  is  ready  to  declare,  not,  perhaps,  that  the  end 
justified  the  means,  but  that  never  before  was  an 
end  so  clearly  worth  fighting  for  made  so  clearly 
unattainable  by  any  good  means. 

Nor  does  our  hindsight  much  avail  us.  The 
end  attained  was  mainly  good.  Southern  society 
was  righted.  But  the  method  of  it  survives  in  too 
many  habits  of  the  Southern  mind,  in  too  many 
shortcomings  of  Southern  civilization,  in  too  many 
characteristics  of  Southern  life.  The  Southern 
whites,  solidified  in  resistance  to  carpet-bag  rule, 
have  kept  their  solidarity  unimpaired  by  any 
healthful  division  on  public  questions.  Having 
learned  a  lesson,  they  cannot  forget  it.  Having 
seen  forms  of  law  used  to  cloak  oppression,  and 
liberty  invoked  to  countenance  a  tyranny,  they 
learned  to  set  men  above  political  principles,  and 


THE  KU  KLUX  MOVEMENT  22$ 

good  government  above  freedom  of  thought.  For 
thirty  years  they  have  continued  to  set  one  ques- 
tion above  all  others,  and  thus  debarred  themselves 
from  full  participation  in  the  political  life  of  the 
country.  As  they  rule  by  fear,  so  by  fear  are  they 
ruled.  It  is  they  themselves  who  are  now  be- 
fooled, and  robbed  of  the  nobler  part  of  their  own 
political  birthright.  They  outdid  their  conquerors, 
yet  they  are  not  free. 


V.     A    NEW    HERO    OF    AN    OLD 
TYPE 


V 

A  NEW  HERO  OF  AN  OLD  TYPE 

IN  nothing  was  the  national  sense  of  the  emer- 
gency in  which  we  found  ourselves  in  consequence 
of  the  war  with  Spain  more  clearly  shown  than  in 
the  popular  feeling  toward  the  men  who  distin- 
guished themselves  in  the  fighting.  The  man  who 
could  fight  for  us  was  the  man  of  the  hour.  But 
yesterday,  the  politician  had  overshadowed  him  ; 
even  the  man  of  letters  had  held  a  higher  place 
in  our  regard.  The  purveyor  of  amusement  knew 
him,  indeed,  as  a  picturesque  figure  on  the  stage ; 
but  how  many  of  us,  as  we  turned  from  the  burial 
of  the  great  captains  of  the  Civil  War,  gave  a 
serious  thought  to  the  men  at  the  head  of  our 
diminutive  army?  How  many  of  us  even  knew 
who  commanded  the  Asiatic  squadron  until  the 
newspapers  set  us  listening  for  the  cannonade  on 
the  other  side  of  the  world  ?  As  to  the  young 
hero,  many  of  us,  no  doubt,  were  fondly  hoping 
that  as  the  world  grew  gentler  some  other  figure 
might  take  his  place  in  our  hearts.  He  seemed 
to  belong  to  the  past,  to  history  and  drama  and 

229 


230  A  NEW  HERO    OF  AN  OLD    TYPE 

poetry,  until  suddenly  we  found  ourselves  in  need 
of  him.  As  suddenly,  and  with  every  dramatical 
accompaniment,  through  the  battle  smoke  and 
dim  light  of  the  dawn  at  Santiago,  he  appeared. 
Again  he  took  his  ancient  place  in  our  hearts,  as 
in  the  van  of  our  enterprise.  The  sudden  need  of 
him  was  distressing,  but  who  of  all  our  millions 
was  not  brighter  eyed  when  he  came  ? 

The  fitness  of  American  soldiers  and  sailors  to 
do  our  fighting  became  an  object  of  serious  in- 
quiry only  when  it  was  too  late  to  make  any  radi- 
cal changes  in  our  military  and  naval  methods 
before  the  trial.  The  West-Pointer  at  his  dreary 
post  on  the  frontier,  the  naval  officer  testing  his 
projectiles,  were  less  interesting  than  the  college 
athlete  on  the  foot-ball  field  or  in  the  racing  shell. 
We  took  little  thought  of  the  men  who  must 
now  represent  us  before  England,  which  expected 
so  much  of  us,  and  before  Europe,  which  appar- 
ently expected  so  little.  To  show  that  there  was 
courage  and  skill  at  the  head  of  our  armaments 
was  the  part  of  Admiral  Dewey.  To  prove  that 
heroism  of  the  highest  military  type  abounded  in 
the  breasts  of  the  generation  on  which  the  fight- 
ing work  of  the  war  must  fall,  and  likewise  the  later 
work,  which  the  war  would  entail,  was  the  op- 


A  NEW  HERO   OF  AN  OLD   TYPE 

portunity  of  eight  men  at  Santiago.  To  associate 
a  name  altogether  new  to  larger  history  with  the 
shining  names  of  those  who  have  from  time  to 
time  illustrated  the  capacity  of  his  race  for  mas- 
terful handling  of  danger  was  the  supreme  privi- 
lege of  a  youth  whose  deserts  it  is  well  for  us  to 
know,  since  otherwise  we  might  not  feel  sure  of 
the  justice  of  fame's  award,  and  whose  character 
and  training  are  still  very  important  subjects  of 
reflection,  since  he  stands  so  conspicuously  for  his 
fellows  in  our  service. 

When  the  American  fleet  first  advanced  toward 
the  Cuban  shores,  the  human  element  in  its  iron 
might  was  typified  for  me  by  a  single  boyish 
figure  outlined  against  a  background  utterly  un- 
suggestive  of  the  sea,  but  a  figure  none  the  less 
suggestive  of  all  that  is  essential  in  the  man 
behind  the  gun.  The  night  before  we  heard  the 
news  of  the  Merrimac  exploit,  a  name  was  often 
on  my  lips,  joined,  in  comfortable  talk,  with  the 
prediction  that  only  failure  of  opportunity  could 
keep  it  obscure.  The  next  day,  the  name  was 
famous,  and  the  boyish  figure,  enlarged  to  Ho- 
meric manhood,  erect  and  masterful  on  the  perilous 
bridge  of  the  Merrimac,  was  for  the  moment  quite 
the  most  notable  figure  in  the  world. 


232  A  NEW  HERO    OF  AN  OLD    TYPE 

The  emergency  and  the  mood  of  the  nation 
made  that  earlier  background  of  young  Hobson's 
figure  peculiarly  important ;  for  it  was  a  back- 
ground of  cotton  fields  and  newly  liberated 
slaves.  It  is  surely  a  hopeful  augury  that  our 
first  young  hero  came  to  us  from  the  one  region 
from  which  we  had,  apparently,  better  reason  to 
expect  imperfect  devotion  to  the  Republic  than 
from  any  other ;  a  region  from  which  the  more 
ignorant  of  our  adversaries  actually  expected  aid 
and  comfort. 

Thirty  years  ago,  the  South  was  not  a  source  of 
confidence  to  the  champions  of  American  democ- 
racy. Americans  were  in  worse  state  there  than 
they  have  been  anywhere  else  or  at  any  other 
time.  Defeated  in  a  long  war,  impoverished,  and 
given  over  to  a  hard  rule,  the  men  who  there 
represented  the  English  race  were  as  near  despair 
as  Englishmen  have  ever  been  since  the  Armada. 
A  child's  face  is  apt  to  take  on  the  expression  of 
the  faces  around  it,  and  the  faces  of  men  and 
women  in  Alabama  in  the  early  seventies  were  not 
happy  faces,  as  a  rule.  It  was  patience  that  shone 
clearest  on  the  women's  brows.  The  biographer 
of  the  late  Justice  Lamar  makes  a  very  striking 
picture  of  the  man  one  might  have  seen  in  those 


A  NEW  HERO   OF  AN  OLD   TYPE  233 

days  in  the  little  town  of  Oxford,  Mississippi,  lean- 
ing stolidly  over  the  ruinous  fence  in  front  of  his 
house,  heavy-browed,  coatless,  the  great  mass  of 
his  hair  and  beard  neglected  and  unkempt,  ac- 
knowledging with  a  surly  nod  the  greetings  of  his 
acquaintance.  A  bright-eyed  young  editor  in 
Atlanta,  naturally  of  a  joyous  temper,  used  to  sit 
for  hours  gazing  abstractedly  out  of  the  window 
of  his  cheerless  office;  in  another  country,  he 
might  very  well  have  fallen  under  suspicion  of 
meditating  sedition. 

The  boy  whom  I  first  knew  among  the  Alabama 
cotton  fields  was  grave-faced.  His  manner  was 
stiff  and  formal ;  his  conversation,  almost  comi- 
cally stilted.  One  might  have  thought  him  heavy- 
natured  if  it  had  not  been  for  his  eyes.  In 
them  there  was  a  smouldering  fierceness  which 
I  did  not  understand,  for  his  bearing  was  modest 
to  gentleness,  and  his  voice  had  all  the  drawl- 
ing sweetness  of  the  leisurely  civilization  out  of 
which  he  came.  Sometimes,  however,  in  base- 
ball and  other  sports,  it  had  a  tone  of  authority 
which  provoked  less  resistance  than  an  attitude 
of  superiority  is  apt  to  provoke  among  people  in 
whom  association  with  a  subject  race  has  bred  an 
imperious  temper.  For  the  rest,  he  stood  out 


234  A  NEW  HERO   OF  AN  OLD    TYPE 

from  his  fellows  chiefly  by  reason  of  the  steadfast- 
ness with  which  he  kept  in  mind  the  possibility 
of  an  honorable  career  and  the  fearlessness  with 
which  he  addressed  himself  to  the  more  serious 
concerns  of  boyhood.  That  attitude  toward  life 
was  somewhat  remarkable,  for  the  shadow  of  de- 
feat, the  reality  of  suffering,  made  doggedness 
commoner  than  ambition. 

Many  of  the  older  men  failed  altogether  to  take 
heart  for  new  careers.  In  men  of  the  coarser  sort, 
Reconstruction  had  bred  more  bitterness  of  sec- 
tional feeling  than  the  war  itself  had  produced. 
The  weaker  sort  simply  went  to  the  wall.  But  it 
is  clear  now  that  neither  the  coarse  nor  the  weak 
were  the  representative  men  of  the  South,  even 
under  conditions  so  unfamiliar  to  the  race  as  pre- 
vailed there  in  Reconstruction  times.  Lamar's 
stony  silence,  unbroken  since  his  voice  was  heard 
in  the  Mississippi  secession  convention,  was  broken 
at  last  in  fervent  eulogy  of  the  dead  Sumner,  the 
champion  of  human  freedom.  The  Atlanta  editor 
won  a  sudden  and  unexampled  eminence  as  the 
orator  of  a  new  patriotism  in  the  reconstructed 
South.  The  grave-faced  boy,  deliberately  conse- 
crated to  the  flag  against  which  his  father  and  his 
kindred  had  fought  in  many  battles,  gave  the  best 


A  NEW  HERO   OF  AN  OLD   TYPE  235 

possible  proof  that  it  is  the  flag  of  a  united  people  ; 
he  put  into  a  glorious  deed,  and  not  into  mere 
eloquent  words,  the  protestations  of  Lamar  and 
Grady.  For  Americans,  in  whom  there  is  no 
finer  quality  than  ready  trust,  their  words  were 
perhaps  sufficient ;  but  his  deed  was  for  the 
world. 

This  especial  significance  of  the  deed  is  enough 
to  make  it  memorable;  it  exhibited  a  patriotism 
which  was  itself,  in  some  degree,  an  achievement, 
and  Americans  everywhere  welcomed  it  for  that 
reason.  But  the  deed  in  its  own  character  was 
representative  in  a  far  broader  sense  than  this. 
It  is  a  fit  deed  to  stand  for  us  whenever  peoples 
are  judged  by  their  deeds.  The  life  at  Annapo- 
lis had  served  not  merely  to  teach  Hobson  all  the 
new  devices  of  the  dreadful  science  he  had  set  out 
to  learn,  but  also  to  develop  the  forward-looking 
planning,  eager  spirit  which  was  always  in  him, 
and  by  virtue  of  which  he  was  American  and 
democratic  to  the  core.  Democracy  has  its  uses 
even  in  a  military  array.  Our  highest  military 
and  naval  traditions  are  of  enterprise,  no  less  than 
obedience  to  command ;  of  finding  the  way  to  vic- 
tory, no  less  than  marching  therein  fearlessly. 
The  incident  of  his  temporary  ostracism  for  re- 


236  A  NEW  HERO    OF  AN  OLD    TYPE 

porting  a  classmate,  so  far  from  being  the  extraor- 
dinary and  sensational  martyrdom  it  has  been 
painted,  was  neither  unprecedented  nor  unchar- 
acteristic of  the  place.  He  accepted  it,  as  others 
have  accepted  it,  simply  as  a  test  of  his  manhood : 
such  a  test  as  democracies  alone  afford.  When 
his  classmates  finally  offered  him  fellowship,  they 
were  not  conquered  revilers  of  superior  merit,  but 
merely  young  Americans  awakened  to  the  neces- 
sity of  respecting  an  honest  conviction.  Perhaps 
a  slight  increase  of  gravity,  and  the  accentuation 
of  his  peculiar  formality  of  speech,  may  be  attrib- 
uted to  the  loneliness  of  his  life  there;  but  the 
wound  left  no  ugly  scar.  It  was  not  the  cause 
of  his  studious  habits.  He  would  have  gone  to 
the  head  of  his  class  in  any  event,  and  would  have 
been,  as  he  was,  a  fair  mark  for  such  mischievous 
girls  as  delight  in  harassing  a  sturdy  and  untrifling 
masculinity.  If  heavier  chastisement  of  disappoint- 
ment and  renunciation  was  not  wanting,  it  merely 
strengthened  his  devotion  to  his  work,  confirmed 
his  strong  religious  bent,  and  armed  him  com- 
pletely against  all  but  the  last  infirmity  of  noble 
minds.  His  original  and  inventive  faculty,  and 
his  elaborate  study  of  naval  construction,  gave 
him,  no  doubt,  an  especial  fitness  for  his  task  at 


A  NEW  HERO    OF  AN  OLD    TYPE 

Santiago;  but  far  more  essential  was  the  serene 
self-confidence  which  his  straitened  childhood,  his 
harassed  boyhood,  his  chastened  young  manhood, 
had  helped  to  build.  When  the  hour  of  his  trial 
came,  it  found  him  no  less  master  of  himself  than 
of  his  ship. 

The  opportunity  was  his  because  he  made  it. 
The  Spanish  fleet,  having  for  a  time  befooled  the 
board  of  strategy  at  Washington,  and  easily 
avoided  the  stronger  but  slower  fleet  of  Admiral 
Sampson,  had  at  length  taken  refuge  in  the  har- 
bor of  Santiago.  Commodore  Schley,  hurrying 
southward  from  Hampton  Roads  with  the  flying 
squadron,  and  ascertaining,  after  some  indecision, 
the  whereabouts  of  the  enemy,  found  the  harbor 
such  a  rat-hole  for  narrowness  of  channel  that  to 
enter  it  seemed  to  mean  the  certain  loss  of  the 
first  ship,  and  this,  if  sunk  in  the  narrower  part  of 
the  channel,  would  effectually  block  the  way  for 
those  which  followed.  Admiral  Sampson,  arriving 
soon  afterwards,  and  seeing  that  the  Spanish 
cruisers  had  put  themselves  out  of  the  fighting  so 
long  as  their  exit  was  barred,  at  once  began  to 
consider  if  some  means  could  not  be  found  to 
guard  against  the  only  possibility  of  Cervera's  es- 
cape :  a  storm  or  fog,  which  might  defeat  the 


238  A  NEW  HERO    OF  AN  OLD    TYPE 

watchfulness  of  the  Americans.  He  was  no 
sooner  resolved  upon  the  plan  than  Hobson,  who 
had  asked  for  sea  service  in  view  of  just  such 
work,  was  ready  with  the  details  of  it.  It  was  to 
sink  the  Merrimac,  a  huge  collier  whose  defective 
machinery  impaired  her  usefulness,  lengthwise 
across  the  channel.  Working  night  and  day,  he 
soon  had  the  collier  swept  clear  of  her  movable 
cargo,  improvised  torpedoes  placed  where  their 
work  would  be  done  quickest,  and  the  electric  con- 
nection arranged.  The  time  she  would  take  to 
settle,  the  number  of  her  crew,  and  the  duties  of 
each  man,  were  all  minutely  calculated  and  ex- 
plained. So  were  the  chances  of  going  to  the 
bottom  before  she  could  reach  her  destination. 
There  were  the  mines,  the  fire  from  the  forts, 
her  own  torpedoes  :  everything  was  considered  but 
his  own  chance  of  life.  Asked  about  that,  he 
treated  the  inquiry  as  irrelevant  to  the  scientific 
problem  he  had  in  hand.  It  was  a  question  of 
getting  in,  not  of  getting  out. 

This  was  not  the  Latin  bravery  that  dares  for 
the  sake  of  daring.  The  deed  was  essentially 
English,  essentially  American.  It  was  planned 
and  done  in  the  calm  northern  mood  that  belongs 
to  men  of  clear  eyes  and  quiet  speech,  and  is 


A   NEW  HERO    OF  AN  OLD    TYPE  239 

commonest  among  men  who  pray.  Whatever 
there  was  of  excitement  in  it  was  religious  —  the 
ecstasy  of  martyrdom.  That  such  a  spirit  sur- 
vives among  us  is  more  important  than  that  war- 
making  is  become  a  science,  or  that  the  fleet 
behind  the  Merrimac  was  iron  clad,  or  that 
modern  fortifications,  and  not  merely  an  ancient 
castle,  guarded  the  harbor's  mouth. 

The  spirit  was  indeed  rampant  in  the  fleet.  The 
signal  for  volunteers  brought  an  embarrassment  of 
riches.  To  choose  his  companions  was  the  hard- 
est part  of  his  making  ready.  Enough  to  man  a 
squadron  volunteered,  and  for  these  there  was  less 
of  fame  to  win  than  for  the  leader.  He  himself 
could  not  have  held  fast  to  his  place  but  for  his 
share  in  planning  the  enterprise  and  his  knowing 
best  how  to  carry  it  out.  How  dear  the  enter- 
prise had  grown  to  him  since  he  conceived  it  was 
made  clear  when  it  was  delayed.  All  was  ready 
late  in  the  night  of  Thursday,  the  second  of  June, 
and  the  Merrimac  set  forth  ;  but  the  Admiral, 
seeing  that  day  was  near  breaking,  sent  a  torpedo 
boat  to  recall  her.  It  took  two  orders  to  bring 
her  back,  and  then  something  happened  quite  out 
of  keeping  with  Hobson's  contained  and  disci- 
plined bearing  throughout  his  life.  The  old 


240  A  NEW  HERO   OF  AN  OLD    TYPE 

Cromwell  stirred  in  his  breast.  Begrimed  and 
blackened  with  his  work,  his  face  seamed  with 
lines  of  sleeplessness  and  care,  his  deep  eyes  no 
longer  smouldering  but  aflame,  he  turned  on  the 
Admiral  with  such  high  words  as  hardly  his  infe- 
riors had  ever  heard  him  speak  before.  "There 
must  be  no  more  recalls.  My  men  have  been 
keyed  up  for  twenty-four  hours,  and  under  a  tre- 
mendous pressure.  Iron  will  break  at  last." 
Soothed  with  good-humored  counsel,  he  waited 
impatiently  for  darkness. 

The  next  night  made  amends.  It  was  not  dark 
or  stormy,  but  the  moon  was  veiled.  The  hour 
before  the  dawn  was  chosen,  but  many  anxious 
watchers  from  the  fleet  saw  the  Merrimac  melt 
away  into  the  gloom  with  the  tall  figure  motionless 
on  the  bridge.  A  little  launch,  meant  for  the 
rescue  of  any  one  that  might  escape  both  death 
and  capture,  followed  behind.  When  the  collier 
came  within  range  of  the  Spaniard's  guns,  all  left 
her  but  the  seven  who  had  been  chosen.  Then 
for  a  time  the  darkness  hid  her  completely,  until 
at  last  the  signal  gun  waked  the  slumbering  hell 
of  the  harbor's  mouth.  There  was  an  instant  roar 
of  cannonading,  and  Powell  from  the  launch  and 
the  watchers  from  the  fleet  saw  the  dreadful  light 


A  NEW  HERO   OF  AN  OLD   TYPE  241 

of  the  firing  and  even,  for  a  moment,  the  dark  hulk 
of  the  Merrimac  passing  onward  to  her  doom. 
The  men  in  the  launch  could  hear  the  noise 
of  the  torpedoes,  but  it  was  not  until  the  swift 
tropical  daybreak  came  that  they  could  see  the 
masts  of  the  Merrimac  standing  up  out  of  the 
channel,  beyond  the  point,  the  Estrella  battery, 
where  Hobson  had  said  he  would  sink  her. 
But  the  launch  waited  in  vain  for  the  beating 
of  the  oars  of  the  returning  heroes.  In  the  after- 
noon, to  the  Admiral,  pacing  his  quarter-deck, 
came  the  messenger  of  the  knightly  Cervera  to 
let  him  know  that  they  lived. 

It  was  not  the  scientific  aspect  of  this  exploit 
which  made  so  strong  an  appeal  to  us  all.  That 
was  interesting,  no  doubt ;  but  the  human  side  of 
it  was,  as  Carlyle  might  say,  a  far  greater  matter. 
Its  chief  interest  and  value  is  in  its  oneness  with 
the  historical  type  of  daring  made  familiar  by 
other  English  and  American  seamen  whose 
names  were  instantly  on  our  lips.  Three  such 
names  of  Americans  were  brought  forward  with 
an  especial  aptness :  Decatur,  Somers,  and 
Gushing.  The  exploits  of  these  three  were  all 
directed  against  a  blockaded  enemy.  Decatur 
entered  the  harbor  of  Tripoli  in  the  ketch  Intrepid, 


242  A  NEW  HERO    OF  AN  OLD    TYPE 

boarded  the  Philadelphia  under  the  fire  of  many 
guns,  overcame  her  crew,  burnt  her,  and  escaped 
without  the  loss  of  a  man.  Into  the  same  harbor, 
shortly  after,  went  Somers,  also  on  the  Intrepid, 
now  turned  into  a  mere  floating  bomb,  meaning  to 
explode  her  among  the  huddled  ships  of  the  enemy. 
But  fate  was  against  him.  Before  he  reached 
the  inner  harbor,  the  Intrepid  blew  up :  whether 
from  an  enemy's  shot,  or  by  the  act  of  her 
own  commander,  or  from  chance,  we  shall  never 
know,  for  none  came  back  to  tell.  Gushing, 
from  the  squadron  blockading  the  Carolina  coast 
in  1864,  went  up  the  river  Roanoke  in  a  launch, 
with  seven  volunteers,  to  destroy  the  Confederate 
ram  Albemarle.  Standing  in  the  prow  of  his 
little  vessel,  he  approached  the  iron-clad  monster 
under  a  rain  of  bullets.  Finding  his  way  barred 
by  a  boom  of  logs,  he  drove  the  launch  full  tilt  at 
the  obstacle,  slided  over  it,  and  then  deliberately 
swung  a  torpedo  under  the  ram,  sunk  her,  leaped 
into  the  river,  and  finally  escaped  with  his  life. 
Of  these  four  desperate  enterprises,  including 
Hobson's,  only  one  failed  completely,  and  that, 
for  all  we  know,  may  have  failed  from  some  cause 
that  could  not  have  been  foreseen.  In  the  other 
three,  the  reasonableness  of  daring  to  the  utter- 


A  NEW  HERO   OF  AN  OLD   TYPE  243 

most  was  proved  by  the  event.  To  attempt  a 
comparison  of  the  four  young  heroes  would  be 
both  useless  and  vain.  Each  measured  his  devo- 
tion by  the  poet's  standard  :  — 

"  Give  all  thou  canst ;  high  Heaven  neglects  the  lore 
Of  nicely  calculated  less  and  more." 

But  a  longer  retrospect  would  be  equally  appro- 
priate. It  might  go  back  to  the  very  beginnings 
of  our  national  life :  to  Paul  Jones  and  the  Bon 
Homme  Richard ;  to  Washington  himself  on  the 
icy  Delaware.  We  need  not  stop  even  there. 
Our  fancy  wanders  on  to  the  beginnings  of  Eng- 
land's sea  power,  when  the  might  of  Spain  was  not 
cabined  in  blockaded  harbors,  but  flaunted  forth 
in  Armadas.  Ralegh  or  Drake  were  as  good  a 
peg  for  a  comparison  as  Gushing  or  Somers.  It 
leads  us  even  beyond  history,  into  the  legends 
and  mythology  of  the  North.  For  what  was  this 
at  Santiago  but  the  whole  warfare  of  our  race  in 
little  ?  What  was  it  the  watchers  saw  from  the  fleet 
but  the  immemorial  ship  that  disappears  into  the 
unknown  ?  What,  but  the  young  Siegfried  enter- 
ing the  cave  of  the  dragon  ?  What,  but  Arthur 
passing  into  the  dying  day  ?  To  peer  into  the 
soul  of  this  high-fortuned  youth  is  to  feel  the 


244  A  NEW  HERO   OF  AN  OLD   TYPE 

higher  mood  of  the  race,  in  which  all  the  wonders 
of  our  past  have  been  wrought  out.  It  is  to  lean 
upon  the  strength  which  shall  fight  the  battles  of 
this  Republic  so  long  as  it  survives  and  battles  are 
to  fight. 


VI.     SHIFTING  THE   WHITE 
MAN'S   BURDEN 


VI 

SHIFTING    THE    WHITE    MAN'S 
BURDEN 

Is  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  still  a  boundary 
line  ?  That  question  must  come  into  many  men's 
minds  the  day  after  a  presidential  election,  when 
it  appears  that  the  South  has  gone  one  way  and 
practically  all  the  rest  of  the  country  another. 
We  may,  in  fact,  put  the  matter  more  strongly 
still,  and  say  that  the  South  votes  on  one  ques- 
tion and  the  rest  of  the  country  on  another,  or 
others.  Certainly,  there  is  a  very  real  sense  in 
which  the  historic  line  does  still  separate  those 
Americans  who  can,  from  those  who  apparently 
cannot,  enjoy  their  political  birthright  to  the  full. 

That  such  is  the  case,  and  that  Southerners 
themselves  realize  the  situation  as  they  have 
not  heretofore,  has  been  borne  in  upon  me  by 
much  free  talk  with  men  of  all  classes  from  the 
Potomac  to  the  Rio  Grande :  with  legislators  and 
judges,  with  the  chairmen  of  state  committees, 
with  congressmen  and  senators,  with  clergymen 
and  lawyers  and  business  men,  and  with  the 

247 


248      SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

man  on  the  street  corner.  The  sense  of  it,  the 
restiveness  under  it,  which  all  intelligent  and 
thoughtful  Southerners  display,  is  particularly 
striking  in  men  of  the  old  ruling  class.  One 
such  man,  who  as  a  boy  served  in  the  Confeder- 
ate army,  who  as  a  young  man  led  in  the  strug- 
gle against  the  carpet-baggers,  who  for  years  has 
belonged  to  the  comparatively  small  group  which 
controls  the  Democratic  party  machinery  of  his 
state,  and  who  now  holds  a  high  state  office, 
confessed  to  me  with  genuine  sadness  in  his 
voice  that  he  did  not  expect  to  live  long  enough 
to  vote  as  he  believes  on  national  questions. 
It  was  his  prayer  that  his  sons  might  some 
day  have  a  privilege  denied  to  him.  This  feel- 
ing, even  before  men  were  willing  to  express 
it,  began  to  have  its  effects  in  Southern  politics. 
And  it  is  in  part  responsible  for  what  is  doing 
now. 

The  main  thing  doing  now  is  something  which 
began  ten  years  ago  in  Mississippi  and  which  in 
a  few  years,  unless  all  signs  fail,  will  have  worked 
itself  out  in  every  state  where  the  blacks  are 
nearly  so  numerous  as  the  whites.  Mississippi, 
by  a  constitutional  amendment  passed  in  1890, 
legalized  that  disf ranch isement  of  the  bulk  of 


SHIFTING   THE    WHITE  MAN'S  B  UK  DEN      249 

her  negro  citizens  which  was  accomplished  fact 
already,  and  had  been  so  for  years.  South 
Carolina,  in  1895,  by  an  amendment  somewhat 
different  from  Mississippi's,  did  practically  the 
same  thing.  Louisiana  followed  in  1897,  and 
North  Carolina  in  1900.  Virginia  and  Alabama 
have  fallen  into  line.  Even  Maryland  has  taken 
up  the  plan. 

What  is  the  conviction  or  impulse  that  started 
the  movement?  What  is  the  true  character  of 
the  change  itself?  Is  there  any  good  reason 
to  regard  it  as  a  solution,  or  as  in  any  wise  lead- 
ing up  to  the  solution,  of  the  problem  which  we 
have  so  long  debated  and  compromised  and  fought 
over?  Is  it  another  crime,  another  blunder  sure 
to  prove  as  disastrous  as  a  crime,  or  are  we  on 
the  right  track  at  last? 

An  increasing  number,  but  still  far  too  small 
a  number  of  Southerners,  are  asking  these  things 
of  themselves  and  their  fellows  with  a  deep  and 
painful  sense  of  responsibility.  Northern  men 
are  asking  them,  too,  but  in  no  such  imperious 
tones  as  they  formerly  used.  The  feeling  of 
responsibility  seems,  in  fact,  to  have  strength- 
ened in  the  men  of  the  South  as  the  feeling  of 
helpless  disapproval  has  taken  hold  of  Northern 


250     SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

men.  Congress,  by  refusing  to  take  the  disfran- 
chisement  movement  into  account  in  passing  the 
reapportionment  act  of  1901,  practically  gave  the 
Southerners  a  free  hand  for  the  time  being ;  and 
the  faintness  of  the  protest  from  the  North  ex- 
hibits a  state  of  public  opinion  there  utterly 
without  parallel  in  recent  history.  Every  attempt 
from  the  outside  to  fix  the  relations  between 
black  men  and  white  men  in  the  South  has 
either  been  completely  negatived  or  has  had  re- 
sults wholly  unlike  those  it  aimed  at.  So  nowa- 
days, though  the  Northern  philanthropist  still 
gives  money  to  educational  and  other  charitable 
enterprises  to  help  the  blacks,  and  though  the 
Northern  reformer  still  denounces,  the  respon- 
sible public  men  of  the  North  are  disinclined 
to  interfere. 

We  cannot  understand  what  the  Southerners 
are  doing  unless  we  remind  ourselves  that  the 
negro  question  is  only  one  side,  and  not  the 
most  important  side,  of  the  Southern  question. 
The  main  thing  is  not  what  to  do  for  the  negro, 
but  what  to  do  for  the  white  man  living  among 
negroes.  That,  certainly,  is  the  Southerners' 
point  of  view,  and  it  is  not  unreasonable.  More 
numerous,  and  of  a  race  whose  capacity  for  civili- 


SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN     2$  I 

zation  and  for  self-government  is  amply  proved, 
why  should  they  be  held  of  less  account  than 
the  representatives  of  a  race  which  has  never, 
unaided,  shown  itself  capable  either  of  civiliza- 
tion or  of  self-government  ?  Shall  we  spend  all 
our  thought  on  strengthening  the  weak,  and 
have  no  care  of  the  strong  ? 1 

Depressing  as  the  Southern  negro  is  to  the 
thoughtful  traveller,  the  illiterate  Southern  white 
man  is  more  depressing  still.  On  many  a  lonely 
highway  they  pass  each  other ;  on  many  a  village 
street  corner  they  mutely  reproach  each  other; 
sometimes,  face  to  face  in  public  conveyances, 
they  stare  at  each  other  in  helpless  antagonism, 
felt,  perhaps,  but  not  understood.  To  overcome 
that  antagonism,  to  save  both  together,  would 
be  an  achievement  sufficient  to  make  a  man's 
name  illustrious  forever  with  Lincoln's.  To 
lift  up  one  without  the  other  is  itself  no 
mean  enterprise.  The  disfranchisement  move- 
ment, now  completing  with  constitutional  con- 
ventions what  the  Ku  Klux  began,  appears  on 

1  The  comparison  with  the  Philippine  situation,  attempted  dur- 
ing the  campaign  of  1901,  was  far  fetched.  The  weaker  race  is 
here  the  alien,  however  involuntary  its  original  intrusion;  the 
disturbing  element  in  the  population,  not  the  main  body  of  the 
people. 


2$2     SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

the  surface  to  be  an  attempt  merely  to  strike 
down  one  politically,  leaving  the  other  as  he 
was  before. 

It  is  a  mistaken  view  of  the  history  of  slavery 
in  America  which  represents  that  institution  as 
battling  only  against  the  public  opinion  of  the 
outside  world,  and  finally  yielding  only  because 
it  was  attacked  from  without.  It  was  the  inter- 
nal weakness  of  the  slave  system  —  its  economic, 
political,  intellectual,  and  moral  unfitness  to  sur- 
vive—  that  brought  it  into  collision  with  the 
forces  that  destroyed  it.  From  the  beginning, 
it  had  within  it  the  seeds  of  death.  To  under- 
stand its  downfall,  we  must  study  the  decay 
within,  and  not  merely  the  hostility  without. 
And  so,  too,  of  the  race  question  to-day.  The 
only  fruitful  study  of  it  is  from  the  inside ;  and 
such  a  study  will  be  inconclusive  unless  it  take 
into  account  things  which  cannot  be  set  down 
in  figures  or  arrayed  in  tables  and  diagrams.  We 
may  exhibit  with  figures  the  material  progress 
both  races  have  made  since  the  whites  regained 
control  in  the  seventies.  The  state  of  education 
also  has  been  frequently  set  forth  with  reason- 
able clearness.  As  to  the  political  situation,  we 
have  abundance  of  statistics  showing  that,  vol- 


SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN     253 

untarily  or  involuntarily,  the  negroes  forego  their 
citizenly  rights  wherever,  by  reason  of  their 
numbers,  they  might  control.  These  things, 
however,  help  us  little  unless  we  realize  how 
they  are  based  in  the  human  nature  of  both 
races  and  how  they  react  upon  both. 

The  suppression  of  negro  votes,  whether  by  vio- 
lence, intimidation,  or  mere  trickery,  has  not  been 
common  to  the  whole  South.  It  has  been  con- 
fined to  portions  of  certain  states — particularly 
the  "  Black  Belt  "  of  the  Cotton  states,  the  richer 
agricultural  regions  in  other  states,  and  the  cities 
generally.  These,  however,  are  the  very  quarters 
in  which  the  political  control  of  the  South  was 
lodged  before  the  Civil  War,  partly  because  they 
profited  most  by  the  constitutional  provision  allow- 
ing representation  to  three-fifths  of  the  slaves, 
partly  because  they  were  inhabited  by  the  most 
intelligent  and  masterful  Southerners  of  those 
days.  It  was  the  survivors  of  that  class  who  led 
the  way  out  of  bondage  after  reconstruction,  and 
once  more  gained  for  themselves  the  foremost 
places  in  Southern  society.  Their  leadership, 
readily  accepted  at  the  time,  was  in  large  measure 
justified  by  the  ability  and  fidelity  they  displayed 
in  party  conventions  and  committees  and  in  pub- 


254        SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

lie  office.  Practising  the  most  rigid  economy, 
they  brought  the  finances  of  the  state  govern- 
ments, exploited  as  they  had  been  by  the  carpet- 
baggers, into  a  surprisingly  good  condition,  and 
they  did  the  like  for  the  counties  and  the  towns. 
So  intimately  were  politics  at  that  time  related  to 
the  welfare  of  individuals  and  families,  so  necessary 
was  honesty  and  ability  in  office,  that  the  strong- 
est sort  of  public  sentiment  demanded  the  putting 
forward  of  good  men,  and  there  was  little  intrigu- 
ing among  the  whites.  For  some  years,  in  fact, 
the  state  and  local  governments  were  administered 
as  capably  and  honestly  as,  for  the  most  part,  they 
had  been  administered  before  the  war ;  and  that  is 
saying  much. 

But  the  wrong  at  the  bottom  of  the  system,  like 
the  wrong  in  slavery,  began  very  soon  to  work 
itself  out.  The  carpet-bagger  disappeared.  The 
negroes  made  less  and  less  effort  to  get  a  share  of 
power,  contenting  themselves  perforce  with  such 
morsels  of  Federal  patronage  as  were  thrown  to 
them  when  their  white  leaders  were  compensated 
for  helping  to  nominate  successful  candidates  in 
Republican  national  conventions.  The  Republi- 
can party  in  the  South  broke  into  factions  and 
ceased  to  be  really  dangerous  except  in  spots. 


SHIFTING   THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN       255 

The  old  ruling  class,  though  shorn  of  its  wealth, 
and  though  its  ascendency  in  national  politics  was 
gone  forever,  was  just  as  strongly  intrenched  in 
power  at  home  as  it  was  in  1860.  Moreover,  its 
power  was  as  clearly  bottomed  on  the  freedman  as 
it  had  ever  been  bottomed  on  the  slave.  The 
"  black  "  counties,  represented  in  legislatures  and 
party  conventions  according  to  an  apportionment 
based  on  the  theory  that  negroes  were  voters,  had 
an  undue  ascendency  over  the  "  white "  counties, 
just  as  they  had  before  the  war.  This  ascendency 
was  in  fact  heightened  by  the  granting  of  repre- 
sentation to  two-fifths  of  the  negroes,  not  counted 
under  slavery. 

Two  consequences  of  these  conditions  led  di- 
rectly to  the  clamor  for  disfranchisement.  One 
was  the  loss  of  respect  for  the  ballot-box  among 
the  whites  who  profited  most  by  the  suppression 
of  negro  votes,  and  the  inevitable  extension  of 
unfair  practices  into  their  own  party  primaries  and 
conventions.  The  other  was  the  discontent  of 
white  men  not  of  the  ruling  class,  stimulated  and 
enlarged  by  the  wider  discontent  of  the  farming 
class  throughout  the  country.  The  antagonism  of 
the  white  counties  to  the  black  counties  had  run 
through  the  political  history  of  the  South  from  the 


256        SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

beginning.  The  granger  movement,  culminating 
in  South  Carolina  in  the  victory  of  Tillman,  when 
the  new  men  actually  got  control  of  the  dominant 
party,  and  elsewhere  in  the  rise  of  a  party  which, 
whatever  names  it  took  in  different  states,  was 
always  the  party  of  discontent  with  the  existing 
order,  was  a  new  development,  and  its  peculiar 
importance  in  the  South  has  never  been  properly 
emphasized. 

In  other  parts  of  the  country,  this  movement 
was  distinctly  a  protest  against  industrial  condi- 
tions, and  against  the  "  money  power  "  in  particu- 
lar. In  the  South  also  it  had,  at  first,  somewhat 
of  that  character;  but  very  soon  it  developed 
there  into  an  uprising,  rather  political  than  social, 
against  the  groups  of  men  who  controlled  the 
Democratic  machines,  and  thereby  controlled  the 
entire  political  life,  of  the  several  states.  It 
became  a  fight  of  the  outs  against  the  ins.  The 
outs  were  made  up  chiefly  of  small  farmers  in  the 
richer  agricultural  regions,  up  to  that  time  ordi- 
narily inclined  to  follow  the  lawyers  and  planters, 
and  the  bulk  of  the  citizens  of  the  upland  regions, 
in  which  most  of  the  "  white  "  counties  lay.  The 
ins  consisted  of  the  office-holding  class,  of  conser- 
vatives who  dreaded  any  division  among  the  whites 


SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

as  the  chief  danger  to  society,  and  in  general  of 
such  as  found  in  the  existing  order  the  means 
of  welfare  or  a  stay  to  their  pride. 

In  South  Carolina,  where  the  outs  won  by  get- 
ting possession  of  the  machine,  the  retirement  of 
such  men  as  Hampton  and  Butler,  to  make  way 
for  Tillman  and  Irby,  marked  a  revolution  in  the 
internal  politics  of  the  little  state  deeper  than  the 
changes  of  1776  and  1860.  In  North  Carolina, 
somewhat  later,  by  combining  with  the  Republi- 
cans, the  party  of  discontent  overthrew  the  Demo- 
cratic machine  at  the  polls.  That  victory  resulted 
in  such  misgovernment,  particularly  in  counties 
and  towns,  that  North  Carolina,  formerly  less 
inclined  to  discriminate  against  negro  voters  than 
other  Southern  states,  has  gone  even  farther  than 
South  Carolina  dared  to  go  in  the  direction  of  dis- 
franchisement.  In  the  other  states,  the  uprising 
against  the  old  leaders  was  either  defeated  or  com- 
promised with,  and  the  chief  of  the  means  em- 
ployed to  defeat  it  was  the  negro  vote  in  those 
counties  where  negroes  were  most  numerous. 
The  contest  revealed  clearly  the  basis  of  the 
power  of  the  ruling  class ;  it  threw  into  clearer 
light  than  ever  before  the  political  antagonism 
between  the  "  white  "  and  "  black  "  counties ; 


258      SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

and  it  also  made  clear  the  impossibility  of  having 
one  code  of  political  morality  in  dealing  with 
negroes  and  another  code  in  dealing  with  white 
men. 

The  negroes  had  taken  but  little  part  in  the  con- 
troversy, but  their  votes,  whether  cast  or  not,  had 
been  of  the  utmost  importance.  The  contention 
that  the  whites  must  not  divide  lest  the  blacks  get 
into  power  lost  much  of  its  force,  for  the  whites 
had  divided  and  the  negroes  had  not  come  into 
power.  Nevertheless,  the  feeling  against  negro 
suffrage  was  heightened  rather  than  diminished, 
for  it  was  seen  that  negro  votes,  even  though  they 
were  not  cast,  or  were  counted  to  suit  the  Demo- 
cratic managers,  were  still  an  obstacle  to  the 
popular  will.  If  the  actual  exercise  of  the  suf- 
frage by  negroes  threatened  property  and  order, 
the  suppression  of  their  votes  brought  about  con- 
ditions destructive  of  equality  among  the  whites. 
In  other  words,  whether  exercised  or  not,  the  legal 
right  of  the  negro  to  vote  was  seen  to  be  a  stum- 
bling-block in  the  way  of  democracy. 

The  discontent  of  thoughtful  and  high-minded 
citizens  with  conditions  which  seemed  to  necessi- 
tate deception  and  fraud  was  already  manifest. 
There  was  a  marked  tendency  among  such  men 


SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

to  withdraw  from  active  party  work,  either  volun- 
tarily or  because  less  squeamish  aspirants  for 
leadership  had,  in  the  nature  of  things,  an  ad- 
vantage over  them.  This  discontent,  however, 
was  not  alone  adequate  to  bring  about  a  change. 
It  needed  to  be  reinforced  by  the  discontent  of 
the  less  thoughtful  but  far  larger  class  of  outs 
who  made  up  the  bulk  of  the  Tillman  party  in 
South  Carolina  and  the  Kolb  party  in  Alabama, 
and  who,  in  every  state,  if  not  conciliated,  drifted 
for  the  most  part  into  populism. 

Moreover,  as  I  have  said,  Southerners  are  restive 
under  the  restraints  which  keep  them  from  enter- 
ing actively  and  fearlessly  into  the  larger  political 
life  of  the  Republic.  Americanism  is  growing  in 
the  South.  Pride  in  the  flag,  pride  in  the  pros- 
perity and  prestige  of  the  United  States,  is  surely 
heightening.  Industrial  development  has  brought 
many  regions,  hitherto  remote  and  separate,  into 
close  business  relations  with  the  North.  Merchants 
and  bankers  are  constantly  visiting  New  York  and 
other  eastern  cities.  Metropolitan  newspapers  are 
read  everywhere.  Women's  clubs  are  active  in 
every  large  town.  The  plantation  no  longer  sets 
the  standard  of  social  usage  and  intellectual  life. 
The  whole  South  is  too  much  alive  to  outer  things, 


260      SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAWS  BURDEN 

too  cognizant  of  a  civilization  ampler  than  its  own, 
not  to  feel  keenly  the  limitations  upon  its  partici- 
pation in  national  political  contests.  Its  political 
solidarity,  once  a  source  of  pride,  is  now  seldom 
vaunted ;  oftener,  it  is  explained  and  apologized 
for.  The  negro  is,  of  course,  the  sole  explanation, 
the  sole  apology.  To  get  rid  of  him  politically, 
and  to  do  it  by  law,  once  for  all,  is  the  only 
remedy  proposed. 

But  whenever  there  is  discussion  of  specific 
plans  the  illiterate  white  man  is  bound  to  come 
in.  Mississippi  provides  for  him  by  permitting 
the  registrars  to  decide  that  he  understands  the 
state  constitution  and  the  negro  does  not.  The 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  sustained 
that  provision,  but  obviously  it  merely  transfers 
the  task  of  suppressing  negro  votes  from  the  in- 
spectors at  the  polls  to  the  registrars  of  voters. 
A  division  among  the  whites  might  still,  at  any 
time,  lead  to  the  registering  of  negroes.  The 
change  has  not  perceptibly  bettered  Mississippi's 
politics,  and  there  was  no  good  reason  to  believe 
it  would.  North  Carolina  and  Louisiana  provide 
for  the  illiterate  white  by  admitting  him  to  regis- 
tration if  he  or  his  ancestors  could  vote  before 
the  Reconstruction  Acts  were  passed.  The  consti- 


SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAWS  BURDEN     26 1 

tutionality  of  this  plan  has  not  yet  been  passed 
upon.  South  Carolina,  of  the  four  states  which 
have  already  acted,  seems  to  have  made  the  least 
elaborate  provision  for  him.  As  yet,  however, 
no  Southern  state  has  adopted  a  simple  educational 
qualification  for  the  suffrage,  and  in  none  of  the 
states  which  are  still  to  act  is  there  any  probabil- 
ity that  such  a  qualification  will  be  fixed.  Un- 
questionably, there  is  a  strong  preference  for  that 
straightforward  course  among  thoughtful  South- 
erners, but  the  practical  politicians  fight  shy  of 
it,  contending  openly  that  illiteracy  frequently 
does  not  imply  unfitness  for  citizenship,  and  con- 
fessing privately  that  the  fate  of  the  plan,  if 
submitted  to  popular  vote,  would  be  extremely 
doubtful.  Another  plan  is  to  debar  negroes  from 
public  office  by  constitutional  enactment,  on  the 
theory  that  office-holding  is  not  one  of  the  rights 
secured  to  them  by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment. 
One  eminent  Southern  public  man,  after  long 
study  of  the  question,  can  find  no  solution  of  it 
save  in  the  repeal  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment 
and  the  absolute  denial  to  the  negro,  as  a  negro, 
of  the  right  to  vote.  A  justice  of  a  Southern 
Supreme  Court  so  far  coincides  with  him  as  to 
declare  that  no  remedy  will  be  effective  which 


262     SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

simply  transfers  fraud  from  the  ballot  box  to  the 
statute  book. 

Such  is  the  case  in  which  Southern  white  men 
find  themselves,  and  such  the  latest  movement 
looking  toward  betterment.  Confessedly,  it  is 
not  a  movement  to  help  the  negro.  Yet  its  ad- 
vocates maintain  that  its  effects  on  the  negro, 
incidental  though  they  be,  will  prove  beneficial 
rather  than  the  reverse.  What  good,  they  ask, 
has  the  negro  ever  got  from  participation  in  poli- 
tics, even  in  those  regions  where  his  vote  is 
counted  ?  A  few  exceptional  negroes,  like  Bruce 
and  Douglas,  have  shown  themselves  fit  to  play 
a  part  in  public  affairs,  but  the  great  majority  of 
negro  politicians  are  declared,  by  such  representa- 
tives of  their  own  race  as  Booker  T.  Washington 
and  William  H.  Councill,  to  be  doing  more  harm 
than  good.  To  get  the  negro  out  of  politics  and 
into  remunerative  work,  so  these  men  say,  is  one 
of  the  first  steps  toward  true  progress. 

But  while  men  like  Washington  do  not  cry  out 
against  the  denial  of  the  ballot  to  the  illiterate  and 
unintelligent  mass  of  their  fellows,  they  do  protest 
against  the  methods  by  which  it  has  been  accom- 
plished in  defiance  of  law  and  the  plans  tried  or 
proposed  for  legalizing  it.  Granting  that  a  large 


SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN     263 

proportion,  perhaps  a  majority,  of  the  negroes  are 
unfit  for  office  and  unready  for  the  suffrage, 
they  nevertheless  object  to  the  exclusion  of  unfit 
negroes  by  any  test  or  before  any  tribunal 
which  will  not  similarly  exclude  unfit  white  men. 
In  effect,  the  best  representatives  of  both  races 
are  at  one  on  the  question  of  what  should  be 
done.  But  the  main  thing  is,  what  can  be  done, 
what  will  be  done. 

The  tribunal,  and  not  the  law,  is  the  real  diffi- 
culty. The  rulers  of  Southern  states  and  counties 
and  towns  do  at  the  present  time,  whenever  they 
deem  it  necessary,  deny  to  negroes  the  political 
power  which  the  law  confers  upon  them.  That 
course  is  in  accord  with  the  public  sentiment  of 
the  communities  in  which  it  is  followed.  The 
practices  thus  established,  the  habit  of  mind  thus 
contracted,  will  not  disappear  at  once  with  the 
conditions  in  which  they  originated.  When  a 
disease  has  made  a  certain  progress,  it  cannot  be 
cured  merely  by  removing  the  cause.  Negro 
suffrage  has  vitiated  the  political  morality  of  the 
South,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  to  disfranchise 
the  bulk  of  the  negroes  is  to  purify  politics.  How 
to  get  tribunals  which  will  treat  negroes  and 
white  men  alike  is  a  problem  not  yet  solved,  and 


264     SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

it   will   not   be   solved  until  public  opinion  shall 
demand  that  they  be  treated  alike. 

The  disfranchisement  movement,  then,  is  very 
far  from  being  a  solution  of  the  race  question  in 
its  political  phase.  It  does  not  leave  the  negro 
in  a  position  which  either  those  who  believe  in 
his  capacity  for  development  or  those  who  are 
governed  entirely  by  the  prejudice  against  him  will 
be  content  to  regard  as  permanent.  The  law  will 
discriminate  against  him  so  far  as  the  law-makers 
dare,  and  registration  boards  will  be  governed  by 
the  same  public  sentiment  which  now  justifies  the 
practices  of  inspectors  at  the  polls.  He  will  have 
the  same  shadowy  political  equality  which  he  now 
has,  and  which  to  some  minds  seems  worse  for 
him,  as  it  is  doubtless  worse  for  the  whites,  than 
if  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments 
were  repealed  and  his  inequality  plainly  declared 
by  law.  As  to  the  whites,  the  temptation  to 
questionable  practices,  or  rather  to  practices  un- 
questionably bad,  will  be  diminished,  but  not 
entirely  removed.  They  will  be  freer  to  divide 
among  themselves,  but  there  is  little  prospect 
of  their  immediately  abandoning  that  provincial 
and  defensive  attitude  toward  their  country  which 
so  oppresses  their  leading  minds. 


SHIFTING   THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN     26$ 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  movement  is  pra 
gressive  rather  than  reactionary.  It  is  a  recogni- 
tion of  actual  conditions,  an  envisagement  of  facts 
hitherto  never  frankly  acknowledged.  It  is  an 
attempt,  half  hearted,  perhaps,  but  not  wholly  dis- 
honest, to  bring  the  political  life  of  the  South  into 
accord  with  the  written  law  by  changing  the  law. 
It  will  tend,  therefore,  to  heighten  the  respect  for 
the  law.  It  is,  moreover,  the  work  of  the  better 
class  of  politicians,  acting  in  obedience  to  public 
sentiment.  One  is  favorably  impressed  with  it  if 
one  considers  only  who  are  in  favor  of  it  and 
who  are  against  it.  Whether  or  not  it  is  a  victory 
for  good  government,  it  seems  to  be,  in  the  main, 
a  victory  for  good  men. 

But  the  problem  is  of  free  government  rather 
than  of  good  government,  and  it  cannot  be  sepa- 
rated from  the  greater  problem  of  which  it  is  a 
part.  The  disfranchisement  movement  does  not 
aim  to  alter  the  general  attitude  of  the  two 
races  toward  each  other;  and  so  long  as  that 
attitude  remains  the  same,  Southern  politics  will 
remain  unlike  the  politics  of  the  North.  The 
trouble  is  not  in  laws  and  institutions;  it  is  in 
men.  It  is  not  in  the  organization  of  the  body 
politic,  but  in  its  composition.  When  de  Tocque- 


266        SHIFTING   THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

ville  declared  that  he  could  explain  every  one  of 
the  differences  between  the  North  and  South 
by  the  institution  of  slavery,  he  overstated  the 
importance  of  the  institution.  He  magnified  the 
evil  of  slavery,  and  neglected  the  slave. 

When  due  account  is  taken  of  all  the  blunders 
we  have  made  in  dealing  with  the  negro,  —  and 
they  have  been  many,  —  of  all  the  crimes  we 
have  committed  against  him,  —  and  they  have 
been  flagrant,  —  it  remains  true  that  not  they, 
but  he  himself,  by  his  mere  presence  here,  is 
the  main  source  of  our  present-day  perplexities. 
The  political  isolation  of  the  South,  like  its  sepa- 
rateness  in  other  respects,  is  due  to  the  negro, 
and  to  the  inevitable  effects  on  white  men  of 
living  among  negroes.  It  is  thirty-five  years 
since  the  slaves  were  freed,  but  the  shadow  of 
Africa  still  rests  upon  the  land. 

At  the  rear  of  a  shop  in  a  thriving  city  in  the 
newly  developed  mineral  region  of  Alabama  I 
saw,  at  midday,  a  burly  negro  stretched  on  his 
back,  eyes  shut,  mouth  open,  wrapt  in  peaceful 
slumber.  On  the  street  corner  outside  stood  a 
white  countryman,  awake  but  utterly  idle,  a  vague, 
childlike  inquiry  in  his  face,  watching  whatsoever 
passed  on  the  other  side  of  the  street.  What 


SHIFTING    THE  WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN       267 

passed  was  characteristic  of  the  New  South ;  but 
the  sleeping  negro,  the  listless  poor  white,  bur- 
dened my  mind  in  spite  of  the  stir  of  business 
about  them,  and  the  smoke  of  furnaces  and  fac- 
tories, and  the  tooting  of  engines  in  the  distance. 
Not  even  material  progress  and  prosperity,  wel- 
come and  creditable  as  they  are,  can  satisfy  us 
concerning  the  civilization  in  which  those  two 
figures  keep  their  places. 

But  there  are  genuinely  hopeful  signs :  signs  of 
progress  in  the  two  directions  in  which  alone  true 
and  lasting  betterment  can  reasonably  be  hoped 
for.  Hampton  and  Tuskegee  on  the  one  hand, 
the  Montgomery  conferences  on  the  other,  are  in- 
finitely more  encouraging  than  anything  doing  or 
anything  that  can  possibly  be  done  at  Washing- 
ton or  in  state  legislatures  or  in  constitutional 
conventions.  For  democracy  rests  on  the  sense, 
if  not  the  reality,  of  equality  among  men.  Com- 
munities made  up  of  races  so  disposed  toward 
each  other  as  the  Southern  whites  and  blacks 
now  are  cannot  live  up  to  democratic  standards, 
no  matter  what  their  laws  may  be.  To  alter  the 
white  man's  attitude  toward  the  negro,  to  rid 
the  negro  of  those  characteristics  which  humanly 
necessitate,  although  they  may  not  justify,  the 


268        SHIFTING   THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

white  man's  attitude  toward  him  —  these  are  the 
two  things  that  must  be  done. 

The  difficulty  of  these  two  tasks  is  not  to  be 
underestimated,  —  not  even  in  view  of  the  tran- 
scendent importance,  the  necessity,  of  getting 
them  done.  As  to  the  negro,  it  will  not  be 
enough  if,  imitative  above  all  things,  he  fashion 
his  life  outwardly  after  the  white  man's.  He 
must  be  inwardly  remade.  He  must,  in  his  own 
mind,  erect  himself  into  the  full  stature  of  the 
manhood  that  beats  down  his  own.  As  to  the 
white  man,  he  must  unlearn  the  lesson  of  his 
own  imperious,  masterful  dominance.  He  must, 
somehow,  learn  to  believe  that  there  is  that  in 
the  negro  which  the  negro's  habit  of  servility 
belies.  He  must  obey  that  higher  law  which 
still,  above  all  statutes  and  constitutions,  impels 
with  an  obligation  which  no  written  law  can 
ever  make  compelling.  The  obligation  is  to  for- 
bearance, to  gentleness,  to  sympathy;  to  the 
entire  fairness  which  shall  not  take  account  of 
rights ;  to  the  brotherhood  which  alone  can 
make  of  equality  before  the  law  anything  but 
the  hideous  mockery  it  is  to-day. 

Is  either  of  those  tasks  humanly  possible  ? 
Which  is  the  more  hopeful  ?  Which  the  more 


SHIFTING   THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BUXDEN       269 

important  ?  Both,  clearly,  are  educational.  Edu- 
cation of  some  sort  is  the  only  device  yet  sug- 
gested to  accomplish  either. 

The  common  belief  is  that  of  the  two  the 
task  of  changing  the  negroes  by  education  is 
the  more  hopeful,  since  there  is  among  them  a 
greater  density  of  ignorance,  and  so  the  possi- 
bility of  a  greater  progress.  It  is  also  held  to 
be  the  more  important,  on  the  theory  that  it 
alone  will  make  possible  a  different  attitude 
of  the  whites  toward  the  blacks.  Tuskegee  and 
Hampton  are  therefore  regarded  as  the  best  of 
all  the  agencies  at  work. 

They  are,  indeed,  wholly  admirable;  they  are 
infinitely  deserving.  Nevertheless,  I  am  drawn 
to  the  conviction  that  the  other  of  the  two  tasks 
is,  on  the  whole,  the  more  hopeful,  the  more 
practical,  the  more  important.  I  feel  sure  it  is 
freer  from  any  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  it  will 
be  vain,  even  if  it  be  accomplished.  We  know, 
and  know  precisely,  what  there  is  to  gain  by 
educating  white  men  of  English  stocks.  We  do 
not  know  precisely  how  much  there  is  to  gain 
by  educating  a  large  negro  population.  I  am 
speaking  now  of  the  immediate  gain,  without 
reference  to  the  race  problem.  We  know  far- 


2/O    SHIFTING    THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

ther,  as  to  the  race  problem  itself,  that  it  is 
vastly  less  perplexing  when  educated  white  men 
deal  with  negroes,  whether  educated  or  illiter- 
ate, than  when  ignorant  white  men  deal  with 
negroes  of  either  class.  Substitute  for  the  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  Southern  whites  who 
cannot  read,  and  the  greater  numbers  whose 
ability  to  read  and  write  is  the  sum  total  of 
their  culture,  an  equal  body  of  educated  whites, 
correspondingly  more  thrifty,  cleanly,  aspiring, 
reasonable,  intelligent,  —  and  we  know  that  edu- 
cation means  these  things  with  men  of  English 
stocks,  —  and  there  is  not  one  of  us  who  doubts 
that  the  situation  will  be  immeasurably  bettered. 
Leave  the  whites  as  they  are,  and  educate  the 
negroes,  and  no  candid  mind  will  be  free  from 
doubts  and  fears  of  the  result.  To  educate  both 
races  up  to  the  limit  of  their  capacities  is,  of 
course,  the  complete  ideal.  To  educate  the 
whites  is  the  safest,  the  easiest,  the  wisest  first 
step  to  take. 

Facing  back  over  Southern  history  is  not 
cheering.  Facing  forward  is  trying  to  the 
stoutest-hearted  optimism.  The  fallacy  in  most 
of  our  debating  is,  in  fact,  the  fallacy  of  wilful 
optimism.  We  have  constantly  assumed  that 


SHIFTING   THE    WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN   2/1 

there  was  a  solution  of  each  problem  as  it  pre- 
sented itself,  a  clearly  right  thing  to  do,  which 
could  also  be  done.  There  is  still  no  occasion 
to  despair.  But  we  must  take  up  every  new 
plan  with  the  chastening  knowledge  that  most 
of  our  devices  have  failed ;  that  nothing  which 
can  be  quickly  accomplished  will  go  deep  enough 
to  last ;  that  no  sudden  illumination  will  ever 
come,  nor  any  swift  breaking  of  the  clouds  shed 
sunlight  on  our  shadowed  land.  Africa  still 
mocks  America  from  her  jungles.  "  Still,"  she 
jeers,  "with  the  dense  darkness  of  my  igno- 
rance, I  confound  your  enlightenment.  Still, 
with  my  sloth,  I  weigh  down  the  arms  of  your 
industry.  Still,  with  my  supineness,  I  hang 
upon  the  wings  of  your  aspiration.  And  in 
the  very  heart  of  your  imperial  young  republic 
I  have  planted,  sure  and  deep,  the  misery  of 
this  ancient  curse  I  bear." 


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